Divergence
by Arcole
Summary: COMPLETE Years after Idalia's Flute, Artemis Entreri busily pursues his new life only to find that the stuff of shadow does not let go easily. Barrabus the Gray is the natural conclusion. Continuation of Damage, Dawn, and Disaster. T for safety.
1. Chapter 1

_Divergence_

Chapter One

_Author's Note: Yes, I read _Gauntlgrym,_ and yes, I am firmly convinced that Barrabus the Gray is Artemis Entreri. And yes, I am saddened by that. After 86 years of life since _Road of the Patriarch_, he hasn't changed much it seems. And that bothers me. Especially since I saw such promise in him after his bit of introspection with Idalia's Flute. Read my fic trio _Damage_, _Dawn_, and _Disaster_ for the full treatment. In fact, it's probably a good idea to give them a quick skim so you'll know where I'm coming from with this fic. Provided you can spare the time. _

_But I like my fanfiction to stay compatible with canon as much as possible and I do consider everything that comes from RAS to be canon. That doesn't mean I can't do what I want in between to make canon suit me in my fanfiction since (here comes the Disclaimer):_

_Disclaimer: I didn't invent most of these characters and make no profit off Wizards of the Coast's publications (though I do wish they'd let me write for them!). _

_So since I can do what I want to keep my own interpretation of Artemis Entreri and still make it jive with canon in _Gauntlgrym_, here is _Divergence_ to explain just how Barrabus the Gray came to be as well as what happened next for Artemis and Dwahvel after _Disaster_. _

_I hope you'll read and enjoy. _

**Waterdeep; a little over eight years after Disaster/Pirate King. Just a bit before the start of Ghost King to place within RAS's timeline.**

Dwahvel Tiggerwillies Entreri stood on the staircase of her home in Waterdeep, watching a young man named Cullon drill a small group of youths in basic swordsmanship in the large warehouse that made up the ground floor of their home.

Over and over he called out instructions to them, yelling at them to block, shouting orders to keep their guards up. At last they stood sweating and panting before him. One young man actually gasped for breath bent over with both hands on his knees, his sword dangling loosely in his grip.

Without warning Cullon pulled his own blade and drove the boy back up to a standing position with the tip of his sword at his throat for a guide. The boy's eyes grew wide, the whites showing in fear as the sharp blade brought a ruby pearl of blood to the skin of his neck.

"Always stay alert," Cullon instructed coolly. "A goblin will not let you rest, an orc will not give you quarter. Think like a predator, not like prey. If you are afraid, do not take up the blade. Go home. Become a merchant or a farmer. Do not think to become a swordsman."

Just as quickly, Cullon's swordtip dropped away and the blade found its sheath again in complete silence, but the young swordmaster never broke his direct gaze into the boy's eyes.

Dwahvel fancied she could see the pulse in the boy's throat as his heart surely pounded in fear. Then just as abruptly, the boy's sword dropped to the floor with a clatter and he practically ran from the building.

All the other boys straightened noticeably as Cullon turned to look at them, his blue eyes unyielding in their expectation. "Anyone else?" he asked quietly. "Now is the time."

Two or three of the boys looked at each other questioningly, but most stood their ground solidly. After a pause, Cullon dismissed the group.

They left quietly out the front door of the warehouse and Cullon walked over to the water jug.

Suddenly her husband appeared at the instructor's side. Even knowing his uncanny abilities to navigate shadow, she was still frequently startled by his sudden appearance in places she was certain he had not been before.

"Sir," Cullon began in surprise, practically choking on the water he'd just drank.

Artemis Entreri gave the young man as much of a smile as he ever had for anyone—far more smile in the past few years than in his entire previous life—and actually patted him once on the back. Dwahvel wasn't sure if it was in camaraderie or to keep Cullon from choking to death.

"You did well," Entreri stated. "That one was not cut out for this life. You'll lose a few more before you're done with them, but the majority will stay and become decent swordsmen. One might even become as good as you or Ballantin."

"Have you heard from Ballantin?" Cullon asked expectantly. "It's been over two weeks since he left for Amn."

"Melissandra got word today that the caravan made it safely. Not even a hint of trouble," Entreri answered. Then he strode over to the staircase where Dwahvel stood, his movements as light as a dancer and as economical as a thief.

"And have you had a good day, my dear wife?" he asked, only a light layer of self-mockery in his tone.

"Delightful, my dear husband," she responded just as lightly. Then she gave him a brief kiss on the lips before turning to head back up the stairs. "Cullon, would you like to join us for lunch?"

"No, thank you, ma'am," he responded politely. "I have to go visit the armorer's before a meeting with Captain Jarrol. Will you be there, sir?" he asked Entreri.

"I just came from Jarrol's," Entreri responded with a shake of his head. "You deal with the merchant men if you like, Cullon. Jarrol knows where I stand."

"Very well, sir," Cullon replied with a bow then took his leave.

Dwahvel studied her husband for a long moment. "So no trips back to Memnon for you, Artemis?" she asked softly.

Her Artemis looked away for a moment, as if he could see through the walls and out of Waterdeep and across the deserts back to his home city. Then he turned to her with a quiet answer. "No. But Cullon can go if he wishes."

Then he took a step up the stairs toward her, and with one hand lightly resting on the bare skin of her neck walked with her up to the main living area of the house. She could feel his fingers playing with the little curls of hair that had escaped their combs and pins, pulling a few more free as he went.

"And how were Elissa and the children?" she asked as they entered the kitchen for lunch.

He took down three dishes from the cabinet while she gave the soup another stir on the cookstove. "Lenora has her coming out in just a few weeks and you and I are of course invited," he began to her delight.

"I can't believe she is seventeen already," Dwahvel sighed. "She was just a little girl when we came here."

"I know," Artemis said with a sigh of his own. "Last week was Emory's birthday. He would have been twenty-one. It's been very hard on Manfred."

Dwahvel could only imagine how difficult it had been for Manfred and Elissa to lose their oldest in such a horrible way. She shivered as she thought how close she'd been to losing Artemis as well in the lacedon attack that had destroyed all of Waterdeep's relief flotilla to Luskan—all but one ship—the ship her husband had sailed on. But even his considerable skills had not managed to save them all from death as Captain Manfred Jarrol's twelve year old son Emory had been slaughtered by the undead ghouls driven by the lich of Luskan.

Artemis sat down at the table and stared out the window over the washing sink. "Tremaine asked again if I would take him on as a student," he said sadly, still staring out into the blue sky outside their home.

Then he turned to his wife with a sadness in his dark gray eyes that the assassin of old would have never shown. "He's only seven, Dwahvel. But he is so much like his brother," Artemis said.

Dwahvel remembered how hard it had been for her husband when his friend Manfred had announced that he and Elissa were expecting again—so soon after losing their son. And when the baby had been born a boy, Artemis had been distant, almost as if he was not willing to allow another child into their lives.

She could only guess his reasons why.

Then she too had become pregnant. Unfortunately, the pregnancy ended in a miscarriage at only a little over a month-her first of three miscarriages.

The first time, neither of them had been too bothered by the loss. It had taken them completely by surprise then had ended before they either really got used to the idea of becoming parents.

But the second and the third had become progressively more difficult—especially when the third had lasted nearly four months, enough time to think this child might go to term.

By then, little Tremaine was almost four and was the image of his lost older brother. While at the Jarrols' one afternoon, he'd fallen while playing and had skinned his knee. Blood pouring down his leg, he'd limped up to her husband and announced that he'd hurt himself. She'd watched as Artemis carefully wrapped a handkerchief around the wound, and all the while Tremaine kept his chin up and bit his lip to keep from crying.

"Was I brave, Mr. Enteri?" he'd asked once the bandaging was done.

"You were indeed," Artemis had replied. And out of nowhere, her husband extended his hand to the little boy, who took it solemnly in a firm shake.

That evening back at their home, Artemis had held her gently, one hand across her belly. Again she could only guess his thoughts.

But the next time she got pregnant, he was a nervous wreck. He forbade her to leave their sofa for the entire pregnancy. He waited on her hand and foot, enlisting help from Elissa and her three girls on the rare occasions that he was forced to be away on business.

He'd even drafted their erstwhile wizard Melissandra Deneviere in conducting various healings and nursemaiding activities, even as the wizard repeatedly complained that healings weren't necessary when mother and child were perfectly healthy.

And when their baby was born, the midwife had laid the little bundle carefully into his arms. Dwahvel watched, tears of joy and exhaustion streaming down her cheeks as her Artemis cradled the infant with an expression she could not interpret.

Her husband had a beautiful smile. A smile he'd only shown her on a very few rare occasions—a smile he never showed anyone outside their home.

But as their three and a half year old daughter Guendoline skipped into the kitchen for lunch-her brown curls bouncing—the room lit up with the sunshine of Artemis Entreri's smile.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"Papa, will you take me to see Brother Ansel in the morning?" Guendoline asked as she crawled up into her seat for lunch.

"Why would Brother Ansel want to see you?" Entreri teased as he eased her chair closer to the table. "He's a very busy man."

"No, he isn't, Papa. He just watches the sun come up. That's all he does. But I like to hear him sing," the little girl answered seriously.

"So do I," Dwahvel added as she took her seat as well. Then giving the little girl's round cheek a gentle caress, she offered, "I'll take you if Papa can't."

"I want Papa to take me," came the answer. "I like to watch the sun with him. It makes the shadows do funny things." Dwahvel and Entreri looked at each other questioningly.

"We'll all go in the morning," her papa answered at last. "Now eat your lunch."

The little girl obediently tucked her napkin into her lap with a firm pat and began to eat as Entreri pondered the idea of shadows and their behavior around him.

Certainly he'd felt an increase in activity from the shadowstones he carried as more and more rumors had reached Waterdeep regarding the return of Netheril and the growing numbers of encounters with shades. Even Charon's Claw had changed in its tone toward him.

The red-bladed sword grew more and more powerful as its former masters drew nearer, showing new abilities beyond its already uncanny power to drape curtains of ash and to poison wounds. Since Guendoline's birth, he'd kept it locked inside a trunk within a trunk in the attic of the house behind a locked door—fully trapped. He would take no chances where she was concerned.

But the shadow weave he had learned to tap very adeptly through the stones behaved much the same as usual. The return of the Netheril had apparently little to do with the magic of Shar. And he himself had nothing at all to do with Shar—his power over shadow had been forced upon him, first by the shade whose lifeforce had imparted the essence of the shadowplane into him through his dagger, then by Jarlaxle who'd literally tossed the shadowstones into his lap. Shar could lay no claim to him, he decided.

That next morning, however, as they sat in the amphitheater of Lathander and listened to the song of morning brought forth by the silver-haired priest Brother Ansel, Entreri caught himself glancing back at the shadows behind him.

They did indeed dance.

Or more accurately, they convulsed. The shadows behind his wife and daughter were placid and still. But those that lay at his back were darker, more sharply defined by the sunlight. And they jumped and flickered as if at war with the light itself.

He caught Guendoline also taking peeks at the show, and she gave him a little smile as if to say "I told you so." Dwahvel also looked back and it disturbed him to see her eyes widen anxiously.

The incredible song of the morning itself seemed to hold a note of uncertainty to it, and as Brother Ansel finished, he turned to look at the three of them.

"The morning is good," he stated. "It offers us a new start, a new beginning fresh each day. Its mercies never cease."

Entreri looked at his wife and little daughter and had to agree. In all the evil that he'd done in the past, who was he to merit something as wonderful as the life he'd been given now?

Then Brother Ansel looked directly at him, an odd expression on his face and a curious tone in his voice. "Artemis, you are not a creature of the morning. Instead you will be the child of the noonday sun where light and shadow are at their sharpest division. For you are a creature of both light and shadow. And the noonday sun is on the rise, Artemis. Morning is passing and the bright light of the fullness of daylight will pour over the earth and nothing will be hidden from its glow."

Then the old man shook himself slightly as if trying to wake himself up and looked down into Guendoline's upturned face. Then he gave her a gentle pat on the head and a sweet smile. "A good morning to you all," he said as he turned to leave.

But a few steps away, he stopped and gazed into the face of the rising sun as if in communion with it, then turned back to Entreri once again. "Be ready, Artemis," he said solemnly. "A storm is on its way and it will ask more of you than you are prepared to give, I fear."

Brother Ansel shivered and pulled his purple and rosy pink robes around himself a bit tighter. Then he walked back to the little family and took Entreri by the arms. "Hold fast to what you love. You have been given the morning. Now you must claim the daylight. Do not let night overtake you once more," he pleaded and Entreri could see real concern on the priest's face, real worry in the shining tears that had begun to well in his eyes.

Without another word, Brother Ansel had walked away, leaving Entreri and Dwahvel mystified and more than a little anxious.

"What was that all about?" Dwahvel asked, her voice shaking nervously.

"I have no idea," Entreri answered as he reached to take his daughter's hand to walk her home again.

Then the piping voice of their little girl interjected, "He said there was a storm coming and I can see the lightning." The two adults looked across the valley where she pointed a small finger. An approaching line of crackling blue flame had just begun to crest the distant mountaintop stretching across the horizon on both sides as far as he could see.

And it was drawing closer.

"That's not lightning," Entreri realized aloud. And with a thrill of fear, he snatched his little daughter into his arms, grabbed his wife by the hand, and began to run. When Dwahvel couldn't keep up any longer, he took her into his arms as well and with a burst of speed and strength wrought from abject terror and adrenaline, he managed to make the relative safety of his house before the crackling blue storm of magic overtook them.

They took shelter in the little room below the staircase as the very fabric of magic itself tore itself apart about them.

Entreri threw himself over Dwahvel and Guendoline, sheltering them from tumbling bits of masonry as the ground literally shook with the force of the approaching curtain of blue flame. Then the house began to rip apart.

Over the years, Entreri had soaked his home in a multitude of magical protections to keep any and all dangers away from his little family. Now unstoppable forces ripped at the timbers and walls as the enchantments were violently unmade by the death of Mystra and the collapse of the weave.

The everpresent shadowstones in his vest pocket coursed with wild energy of another kind as the shadow weave drew new strength from the collapse of its sister, and Entreri drew on that magic to protect them from the upheaval of the other.

He could hear his little Guendoline begin to cry in fear as the stairwell sheared apart around them, leaving them exposed to the wild magic that began to rip through the very air. With a cry, he forced all his attention into the shadow weave, pulling on its countering force to shield his wife and child from danger, creating a dark bubble of force around them.

He threw himself deeper in to the shadow weave as the timbers of the house crashed about them. He could feel Dwahvel trembling in fear in his arms. The noise of the collapse was deafening, drowning out the sounds of his little girl's fear but not the feelings of his own terror. Every falling brick took a piece of his shield away and he desperately sought to keep rebuilding it.

He pulled harder and harder at the energy of the shadowstones and they responded to him with a power he'd never experienced before. Even the raw magic that coursed around them with all the force of uncreation itself was not able to penetrate that black shield. Soon, he was so deep into the fibers of that dark weave that he could sense things from it.

Feelings of dark exultation, of triumph, began to backfeed into him. He received images of the annihilation of magic itself, with only the shadow weave to remain. He could feel the destruction taking place as entire sections of Faerun were destroyed or displaced; he could feel entire planes of existence shifting.

Then he felt a dark malevolent eye upon him and felt its fleeting interest, but something else drew its gaze away almost as quickly as it had come upon him.

As an overwhelming feeling of dread came over him, he began to pull away from the dark weave, unwilling to bring the attention of that unsearchable power upon him again.

Fortunately, the blue flame of magic's last breath had passed them by, leaving a wreck where their house used to be—indeed where much of the neighborhood used to be.

Seemingly at random, the magical disruption had claimed distinct spots for utter destruction, leaving others untouched. In the eerie stillness that followed, he began to hear calls for help, cries of pain.

He pulled his wife and child free of the rubble that had piled around them and made certain they were unharmed before intending to see about his neighbors.

But the dark cloud he'd summoned clung to him like a black fog. He could not disburse it again. Instead it seemed to grow thicker and it pulled at him as if seeking something from him.

Through the dark haze that now clouded his mind, he could hear Dwahvel's voice speaking to him, asking if he was all right. He could feel her hand on his cheek. He could feel the curls of his daughter's hair against his fingers where he still held her close to him. But he could no longer see them. He tried to call out to them, but he could not hear the sound of his own voice. Then all sensation ceased and he was wrapped in an impenetrable blanket of darkness.

The void around him gripped him like a vise of nothingness. No sensation, no sight, no sound-he could not even feel movement within his own limbs as he tried to fight free. He tried anew to dismiss the cloud of shadow itself, but it clung tenaciously to him. There was a sudden jerk in his perception and even thought itself ceased.

Time passed—he had no idea how much time—but then Entreri found that he had awareness of his own body again. Gradually soft sounds returned to his ears and the feel of warm air brushed against his skin. Oddly enough, it was still dark. But as he looked around, he realized that it was dark because it had become night.

The stars shone overhead and a thin sliver of moon provided just enough light to make out his surroundings.

Desperately he looked about for Dwahvel and Guendoline. But it rapidly became clear that he was no longer in Waterdeep at all. In fact, he stood at the edge of a desert. Behind him he could see a few trees and scrub bushes. An oasis.

He ran his hand through his hair and realized it was shorter than he remembered. Another hand across his face revealed several days of beard growth even though he'd shaved only that morning.

Then his hand met the cold, bony pommel of Charon's Claw at his hip and the coldest of cold chills ran through him. He had not carried that blade in years. It had lain locked away in a trunk within a trunk in the attic of his house behind a locked and trapped door.

Yet now, it hung at his hip.

And his jeweled dagger hung at his belt as if it had never left it.

And in the pocket of his vest he found a small obsidian figure of a horse—the nightmare steed he'd left in Calimport at the halfling guild house over eight years ago.

Sudden realization ran through him. He was in the oasis near Jlahran outside Memnon.

Over eight years ago he had left Jarlaxle and Athrogate only days before stopping for the night in that very oasis, camped beneath a large date palm. It was there that he had woken from a horrible nightmare and had galloped toward Calimport, desperately afraid that he would arrive to find Dwahvel dead.

Out of the darkness a sudden cry shook him from his thoughts. He looked up to see a dark figure rise from the ground beneath a large date palm. He could see the man look around desperately, a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other. Then he dropped the weapons to the ground and sank to his knees, his breath coming in loud heaves, as the man was clearly in some kind of serious distress.

Then Entreri watched as the man gathered up his cloak and gear and pulled something out of his pocket. A dark horselike shape formed in a swirl of smoke, fire jetting out its nostrils. He saw the man leap astride and gallop away into the darkness of the desert—toward Calimport.

Then he knew what he had seen. He looked at the figure in his hands. He stood in the same clothes with the same items of eight years previous. He'd just seen himself heading toward Dwahvel.

The shadowstones had cast him back into the past. He stood in the same place, in the same clothing, with the same items of the man who'd just ridden away toward Calimport in distress.

But he was no longer that man. This was no longer his life. His life lay eight years in the future. His wife, his child, his home, all lay eight years away from him. How could he get back to them?

He knew where to find Dwahvel. He could call up the nightmare steed in his hand and ride to her side again, just as he had done those years before. But as quickly as the idea came to him, he dismissed it. He knew that he could not follow. He could not go to her now even though he knew where to find her. After all, he'd already gone.

Dwahvel was lost to him. His wife lay eight years away from him, not across the desert.

And worse, his little daughter didn't even exist. She did not lie snug in her bed in Waterdeep, waiting for him to come tuck her in for the night.

He watched the cloud of dust from the hellish steed's hooves disappear toward the horizon and he knew the Artemis Entreri who rode away from him would be fine. That man would find a new start for himself. He would find love and healing in Calimport. He would find friendship and peace in Waterdeep. He would know how it felt to care more about another person than he cared for himself.

He would know the incredible feeling of bringing a new life into the world.

In only a few hours, that Artemis Entreri would be with the woman who would become his wife. That Artemis Entreri would someday hold his newborn daughter in his arms.

But the Artemis Entreri he was at that moment had lost it all.

A black wave of grief and anger crashed through him, and he looked up into the unfeeling darkness of the sky and roared.

Then he fell to his knees and wept bitter, anguished tears.

And in the pocket of his vest, a pair of black shadowstones throbbed and hummed.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

The sun was rising before Artemis Entreri pulled himself together enough to stand to his feet. He gave another long look toward Calimport, before turning back toward Memnon.

Somewhere in the city there had to be a wizard powerful enough to return him to the place and the time he belonged in.

Then he recalled the power that had sent him there was not of Mystra's magic and her wizards would not likely be able to assist him in reversing it.

He had to find someone versed in shadow magic. He needed a shade.

But there was great danger in searching out one of Netheril's sons. Wizards could be paid or coaxed or threatened into service. But the Netherese did not live in Faerun openly at this time, he remembered. He would find one with difficulty and would convince him to help with even less chance of success.

More likely, any shade he encountered would simply try to kill him and take the shadowstones for himself.

Jarlaxle then? he asked himself. That one had tricks enough to fill the desert of Calimshan and a bottomless pit of knowledge in Bregan D'aerthe and his lieutenant Kimmuriel. But it had been years since his last meeting with the flamboyant drow, even if it would be days only for Jarlaxle.

Somehow he could not bring himself to venture that direction. His time with the drow was over—long over.

Who did that leave? he wondered. He wished he could speak with Brother Ansel for only a moment. The priest had offered him some sort of odd prediction, had told him the storm was coming and to hold fast to what he loved. But Waterdeep was well over a thousand leagues away. And when he arrived, Brother Ansel would not know him.

With a sigh, Entreri realized that he had no one to turn to. He looked up to the sun, blinking into its morning rays, wishing he could hear the song Brother Ansel heard, wishing he could ask it for answers. He tried to remember if he had ever seen a temple of Lathander in Memnon. In a city almost completely devoted to the moon, it would be odd indeed to find worshipers of the sun.

But he was totally averse to seeking help from the priests of Selune—not that they would be happy to see him anyway, since by their reckoning of time, he'd just murdered their principal cleric.

Two days' journey brought him back within the walls of the city—a place to which he'd never planned to return. The market stalls stood wide open and he could hear the calls of the vendors echoing around him. Strange feelings of deja vu assailed him as he slipped through the streets, ever watchful for some sign of the church of Lathander.

Though still at odds with the shadowstones and their exile of him back to the past, he decided it would be prudent for him to use their powers to alter his appearance as much as possible. After all, he did not wish to be arrested for murder.

The magic of the shadowstones hummed lightly around him, altering his outward appearance to a man significantly older, and he stooped with seeming age and shuffled his feet as he walked. The ruse was even sufficient to foil the direct gaze of a pair of city guardsmen who appeared to be searching for someone in the crowds—quite possibly the past version of himself on the run from the priests of Selune.

Just as he felt he'd exhausted the likely sections of town, he turned the corner to find a small building with the rising sun emblem of Lathander above the door. Interestingly enough, there was a separate emblem of the full sun on the door itself, an emblem which appeared to be new and shone brightly in the single shaft of daylight that managed to pierce the shade of the narrow street.

Entreri felt very ill at ease as he entered the place of worship. He'd been to the amphitheater a number of times over the years and had grown comfortable enough with its priest Brother Ansel to even seek his counsel on occasion. But he'd never set foot in the great temple of Lathander in Waterdeep. He'd never even considered the possibility of doing so.

However grand he imagined that great temple to be, this little sanctuary was not what he expected at all. The building was oddly dark for a place devoted to the worship of the sun. Tall windows lined the room, but very little light managed to make its way in past the taller buildings on each side.

A golden sunshaped brazier hung overhead as the primary source of light, but its fire burned low, casting only a pale glow against the blue ceiling. Scattered benches were placed haphazardly around the room and one or two appeared to be in the process of being dismantled for firewood.

In the front of the room on a low dias sat a couple of chairs, both upholstered in the purple and rosy pink hues he knew from Brother Ansel's robes, but the cushions were threadbare, though clean.

However, one new item stood out in the room. Behind the dias hung a huge, still unfinished tapestry of a figure he was not familiar with. He'd seen various depictions of Lathander over the years—always a smiling blond youth surrounded by spring flowers, musical instruments, and baby animals.

The figure in this portrait bore some similarity in that he smiled, but he was significantly older and wore a golden beard. Around him were images of spring and the arts, but these were balanced with images of law and time. Overall, the affect was much less innocent and more to his liking.

"The noonday sun," he murmured aloud, remembering the words of Brother Ansel.

"Who are you?" called a voice from the darkness beside the tapestry. "Who speaks the heresy of the noonday sun?"

A glowing orb appeared in the shadows, gradually illuminating the hand then the face of the one who held it.

Entreri gazed at the priest, more than a little surprised by what he saw. This young woman seemed barely old enough to leave the schoolroom, much less old enough to wield clerical power and wear the robes of a full priestess of Lathander.

He watched her approach, making certain to keep his shadow disguise firmly in place.

She had brown curly hair and stood several inches shorter than he—only a few inches taller than Dwahvel. He had the sudden wrenching thought that his Guendoline would grow up to look much like her. But this girl had large brown eyes, unlike the dark gray his daughter had inherited from him. An image of his little girl playing in her room flashed into his mind, and the sudden rush of loss was enough to cause his breath to catch in his chest.

The young woman repeated her question, "Who are you?" more intently this time and the glowing orb in her hand grew brighter.

"Barrabus," he answered, the old Calishite word for foreigner springing to his mind. "My name is Barrabus."

"Drop your disguise, Barrabus," she stated calmly, "and tell me how you know of the noonday sun heresy."

Her powers were apparently more formidable than her appearance, he considered, if she'd seen through his disguise that easily. Cautiously, he let go of the illusion and allowed his features to return to normal.

"And you are a shade as well," she whispered in amazement as she examined him. "Tell me, Barrabus—stranger-how do you know of the noonday sun?" But her tones had grown less hostile and more intrigued.

"I have simply heard the phrase mentioned by a priest of Lathander in the city of Waterdeep," Entreri explained lightly. "I know nothing of a heresy. Your tapestry merely brought the phrase to mind."

She gave him another long searching look, then a little nod. "What brings you to the temple of Lathander then, stranger?"

"I seek assistance in a matter of magic," he answered. "Perhaps there is someone here who is versed in such things."

"I am the only one here at this time," she replied. "But this is a place of clerical power, not magical. I am not certain we will be of help to you." She continued to circle him, as if examining him from all angles, her orb still glowing before you. "Yet perhaps prayer would be a useful course of action. Ask the morning sun for enlightenment," she suggested.

"I am no worshiper of Lathander," Entreri replied a little sharply. Then he wondered to himself why he was there at all.

The girl snorted a little at that. "You called upon the lord of the morning less than two days ago," she chided. "I can still see the light of his favor upon you."

Entreri shivered at that. He did not like the idea of his praying to anything, nor did he desire the favor of any god. He made his own way in the world. He had no need of gods to guide him.

As if she could hear his thoughts, she answered, "You've been guided by the light of the sun for many years, stranger. Why turn from his guidance now when you need it the most?"

As she'd spoken to him, she'd drawn nearer. "You are a creature of light and shadow," she began.

But no sooner had the words left her mouth than he'd drawn his dagger defensively and stepped away.

"I belong to no one," he stated. "I follow no god. And I am clearly in the wrong place."

Outside in the street before the little building, the shaft of daylight shone down around him, casting his shadow before him, and he grew sick as he watched the edges writhe.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four

In the small room he'd secured for himself that evening, Entreri lay on the bed, fully aware of the cot's shortcomings by way of comfort and cleanliness. Dwahvel's sheets always smelled like lilac. He could see her hanging them in the back garden to dry, their snowy lengths snapping in the wind. In his mind's eye, she turned to him with a smile.

And in the flower bed, Guendoline carefully picked every single one of the purple daisies and brought them to him, leaving the flower bed bare.

"I've picked a bouquet for Mama," she explained, holding them up for his approval.

"Then we must put them in water," he replied. He winced a little as he noticed the stems, always broken far too short for any but the shallowest of cups.

As he helped her place the flowers in the center of the kitchen table, he couldn't help but shake his head. Flowers were a mystery to him, part of the arcane knowledge of women that he'd come to tolerate, and perhaps even begin to appreciate during his years with his wife and daughter.

Their activities and desires mystified him. Why must the walls have a color? White was a color. Why must the dishes match? They were for food, not for decoration. But Dwahvel liked nice things, and he liked to provide them for her.

And Guendoline loved to paint and sing and tell stories. "That's the halfling in her," Dwahvel would say with a wink.

To Artemis all the chatter in the house made up a sort of background music-unintelligible for the most part, nonsensical for the rest-but a music he loved and a music he missed desperately.

In the evenings, they would sit together by the fire, and he would cradle his sleepy girl in his arms until finally the chatter stopped and she began to yawn.

Then he'd carry her, soft and warm in his arms, up to her room where he'd lay her in her little bed with sheets that smelled like lilac and a soft blanket on top. "Keep the monsters away, Papa," she'd instruct sleepily. "Tremaine says that there's a huge dragon that lives under the mountain."

"I've dealt with dragons before, my dear," he'd tell her solemnly. "I will make certain they stay away from you."

"And no goblins or giants," she'd continue.

"Absolutely not," he'd assure her as he blew out her lamp. "Nothing can come into this house to hurt you."

"Goodnight, Papa."

The inn room was dark now, and a cool, yet slightly fetid breeze blew in from the window.

"Goodnight, Guendoline," he whispered into the darkness. Then he was quiet for a very long time.

As he finally drifted off to sleep, his hand reached out unconsciously for Dwahvel, but his fingers only met the empty air.

Sometime before noon the next day, he'd managed to find a wizard to speak with him about his predicament—a crusty gentleman named Grimandi, who declared up front he had better things to do with his time than suffer lunatics raving about time travel.

One look in the swordmaster's dark eyes convinced him that his client was not insane, and was furthermore deadly serious about the problem at hand.

Yet after several minutes of discussion, Entreri had still failed to get the obstinate wizard to understand the true nature of his predicament.

"What you are asking is just not possible," Grimandi stated. "Time travel spells only send one back in time then upon recall send one back to where one came from. What you are asking for is a time travel spell that sends one into the future—without a recall. Impossible. The future has not happened yet. You cannot go there."

Entreri clenched his fist and tried one more time to explain to the man that he had indeed been there. He had a life there that he wished to return to.

"Then simply engage the recall of the spell that sent you to the here and now," the wizard stated in the same voice he would use if he were trying to explain it to Guendoline.

"As I have told you before," Entreri tried one last time, his patience wearing dangerously thin, "I was not sent by a spell but by a shadow artifact. It was not of my own volition that I have come here."

"Shadow?" Grimandi echoed, as if hearing him for the first time. "Shadow?" and this time his voice grew nervous indeed. "I want nothing to do with shadow. Besides, any magic I possess would be ineffective against it." Then the man rose from his large, cluttered desk to usher Entreri out the door.

"If it were not a shadow artifact, what would you suggest?" Entreri stopped him with one raised hand.

"Is it purely a time travel item?"

"No, it is a channel for general magical energies," Entreri replied. Only the knowledge that the wizard could not and would not use the stones emboldened him to say so much—that and his growing desperation to simply go back home.

Grimandi sat back down for a moment to ponder the intellectual problem the situation posed. "The artifact did this on its own, without your instruction," he restated, almost as if making a legal summary.

At Entreri's nod, the man asked, "And is the artifact sentient?"

"No, it has never shown any signs of being anything but a channel," Entreri replied.

"And would you know a sentient artifact if you encountered one?" the wizard asked.

Something truly pernicious in Entreri caused him to pull Charon's Claw out of its sheath just enough for the man to get a good glimpse of the blade he carried. "What do you think?" Entreri asked scathingly.

The wizard grew gratifyingly pale and explained, "I had to ask. The great majority of people have never encountered a truly sentient magical item before." Then his curiosity got the better of him and he leaned forward for a closer look at the evil red blade.

However, Entreri had already sheathed it and pulled his cloak across the pommel to shield it from sight.

Grimandi took the hint and instead turned back to his shelf of scrolls and heavily bound leather volumes. After a few moments of searching, he pulled out his choice, a thin volume bound in what appeared to be thick green silk.

He sat and read for a few minutes, then turned several pages and read some more. After a while, Entreri began to wonder if the man had forgotten he was even present in the room, so he cleared his throat.

Sure enough, the wizard jumped a little and turned back a page or two. "Even a sentient artifact would probably not take such an extreme step as to send you eight years in the past. This is quite possibly a planar issue," he stated firmly.

Entreri gave him a look that invited him to continue his explanation, but the look held an air more of threat than interest.

"An item from the elemental plane of fire will be drawn to fire, an item from water will be drawn to water," he explained. "This item is part of the plane of shadow and will be drawn to shadow. Did you have an encounter with shadow during this time?"

"No," came Entreri's curt answer.

"Then there must be something else about this time that the stones were attracted to. Perhaps something personal?" the man suggested, but his very bearing made it quite clear that he did not expect Entreri to begin confessing details of his personal life.

"If the stones were acting on some kind of attraction, they are unlikely to reverse the effect. They have found what they were after," the wizard finished. "Quite possibly the only way into the future is the same way the rest of us do it. One day at a time."

Entreri rose, aware that he'd heard all the man could offer.

Then Grimandi looked up at him with a curious expression as if he'd just had a very brilliant idea. "Perhaps the shadow lies in you," he suggested. But in seeing Entreri's abrupt and quite frankly frightening reaction to his choice of words, he quickly glanced away and began to innocently reshelve his books.

"I thank you for your time," Entreri stated and turned to walk out of the room.

The wizard cleared his throat lightly and got up his courage enough to ask about payment for services rendered.

Entreri turned back to him and stated, "On the 29th day of Tarsakh in 1385, an arcane curtain of blue flame will destroy much of Waterdeep—and quite possibly the rest of Faerun as well. Magic itself appeared to be disintegrating around me. Prepare yourself."

As the wizard stared at him wide-eyed, he added, "Oh, and the Shade Enclave of Netheril is back. Keep an eye out for the shadovar."

Tossing a silver piece on the table for good measure, Entreri left the room, his thoughts whirling.

As much as he wished to reject out of hand the idea that the shadow lay within him, the wizard's words kept returning to him. Certainly, that moment in the desert marked the darkest time of his life. He'd never felt so hopeless, so without direction or purpose. Idalia's Flute had nearly destroyed him.

He considered anew just what Dwahvel had done for him when she'd allowed him in her house, when she'd listened to his stories-when she'd loved him away from the brink of self-destruction.

What if he hadn't gone to her? What if he had just walked away in his despair? Where would he have gone? What would he have done?

The hole in his life where she should be threatened to swallow him. He had grown dependent on her love, on her insights, on her very presence.

For most of his life, that realization alone would have been enough to make him leave her-even kill her to erase the liability she presented.

Now, he just wanted her back. He wanted to be whole again.

Perhaps this was what the shadowstones were after. Perhaps they wanted to see what a truly hopeless Artemis Entreri looked like. Because when he faced the possibility that he was on his own for the next eight years, he certainly felt hopeless.


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five

A pair of red eyes followed him from the darkness of an alleyway as he left the wizard's rooms. The eyes watched as he crossed the street and passed behind a line of merchants' stalls.

Then with a signal to another unseen pair of eyes, this set vanished into the darkness.

Entreri walked back to his room at the seedy inn, pondering the information the wizard had given him. All the distance in Faerun could not compare to the distance of time that faced him. In a year's time, he could cover the distance from Calimport to Icewind Dale on foot with a side trip into the Underdark for good measure.

With enough coin, he could hire a wizard to teleport him anywhere he wanted to go in an instant.

But the distance between himself and his family was over eight years. No more, no less. There was no way to shorten it. No amount of work or dedication would make the time pass any faster than day by day, minute by minute. And each minute lasted an eternity.

And in the meantime, where to go? What to do?

As much as he did not desire to remain in Memnon, he realized that if he desired to stay out of his own present self's way or the way of anyone likely to know his present self, Memnon was the most logical place to make his temporary home. After all, he'd not set foot back there again until the shadowstones forced him. Nor had he sanctioned any trips to Memnon for his people until just before he left.

That only left the question of what to do.

He'd spent the past several years building a business that specialized in security—first for the merchant guild affiliated with Captain Jarrol, then expanding into other guilds and shipping lines. He'd managed to keep his clientele small and select, but had served enough influential people that his opinion alone on a consultation was valued highly enough to buy Dwahvel some very nice things indeed.

But he had no desire to build such an organization here. First of all, he wanted an even lower profile than he kept in Waterdeep and Memnon was a much smaller city.

Second of all, he couldn't care less about the safety of a single Calishite caravan either leaving or entering Memnon. He knew the power system of Calimshan. He knew the way the pashas worked. He wanted nothing to do with that life. That path was closed to him.

He considered his days with Jarlaxle, defeating monsters for the King of Damara. Perhaps he could plunder the sewers of Memnon, slaughtering wererats for bounty.

But as much as he detested lycanthropes in general, how could he justify causing their death? He had no stomach for killing anything just because someone told him to.

His hands had not been bloodless in the past eight years. But it was one thing to confront the man attempting to steal the cargo he'd sworn to protect. And even then he preferred not to kill the thief unless there was simply no alternative. He much preferred to let the judicial system determine their fate. He'd spent too many years serving as judge, jury, and executioner already.

And as Jarlaxle reminded him, how many of those who had received death at his hands had deserved better?

In his eight years in Waterdeep, he realized, he'd developed principles. At one point in his life the thought would have horrified him. Now it only filled him with a sense of frustration.

He sighed. All he knew was the sword.

And it was not enough.

For the past several years, any time he'd had a problem to work out, he'd found himself walking to the amphitheater of Lathander. It was a quiet place, a place where he could see an enemy approaching from far enough away to prepare for him-not that he'd ever been attacked there or for that matter anywhere within the city of Waterdeep.

Sometimes he went at sunrise; those times seemed to be the most peaceful and the most fruitful. Sometimes he went during the day. Sometimes he merely walked to the amphitheater and back again.

Now, he found himself walking through the town aimlessly, and the brown streets of Memnon with its countless blind alleyways and narrow, twisting streets mirrored his state of mind. He did not even bother with his shadow disguise. Anything that wanted to find him at this point, he decided, was welcome to do so.

And in a small blind vacant lot between an old warehouse and an empty livery stable, something did indeed find him.

"Artemis!" came an urgent call from the back of the lot. The area was walled in on three sides by twenty foot high windowless brick walls where the buildings came together. An open patch of sky hung overhead, bright blue in the Memnon daylight.

Cautiously, he scanned his surroundings for signs of archers or other observers, calling surreptitiously on the powers of the shadowstones to alert him of danger and bring up a layer of shadow stoneskin around him.

Then he recalled that this was the same spell he'd used to protect his wife and child during the storm of blue fire. However, this time it behaved normally, no dark fog, no time travel. He was a bit disappointed, but not surprised.

He called into the shadowy corner where the voice had hailed from, "Who is it? Show yourself."

To his utter astonishment, out stepped the last person he expected to see in Memnon.

She eased out into the light, blinking a little as if she'd just stepped out of a dark room. "Artemis, please help me," she pleaded and her voice sounded genuinely distraught.

He used the stones to cast a quick spell to see if she was being truthful. Indeed she did want his help, the stones concurred.

"I did not expect to see you here, Calihye," he stated. "And I am not at all certain why you would want my help."

It had been a very, very long time for him since he'd seen her last; though for her, he realized, only a few weeks had passed. And she looked very much the worse for wear. Her eyes were hollow and dark and her skin was pale and drawn. She bore dirty streaks down her neck and arms and her hair clung to her scalp greasily.

But to his surprise, the ugly scar that had marred her otherwise pretty features had faded to a fine red line, barely noticeable. He wondered if someone had healed her of it just to infuriate her.

"I am sorry, Artemis. I am so sorry," she whispered and her voice broke a little. The stones confirmed a level of truthfulness, so he followed that spell with another. The brick behind her shimmered with a bit of glamour, hiding a doorway perhaps, but for the moment she was alone.

"I didn't really want to hurt you."

A lie, the spell replied. But he knew that already.

"I care about you."

Oddly enough, there was a level of truth to that, enough to surprise him.

Entreri looked at her once more, aware that he truly felt nothing for her. He'd told Jarlaxle years ago that she'd made her own path the moment she tried to kill him. Whatever she'd gotten herself into now, she'd just have to get herself out of. He had concerns of his own.

"I cannot help you, Calihye," he said firmly and turned to walk away.

"Please," came her desperate cry again, but she did not move toward him. "They found me, Artemis. They found me in the alley and took me. Oh, please, Artemis!"

He didn't need the stones to know her terror was real. "Who found you?" he asked.

"The drow," came the whispered reply and she actually trembled as she said the words.

"Jarlaxle?" he asked, knowing in his heart that it could not be. Jarlaxle would never have engendered the fear in her that was so apparent.

"No. Others. They talk about him like they know him, but they will not take me to him," she answered.

Bregan D'aerthe, Entreri surmised. Part of the group working the surface, getting ready for their next strike—Luskan, he recalled.

Then he remembered a moment in his kitchen when Jarlaxle had actually tried to use Calihye as a bargaining tool to gain his help in stopping the relief caravan to Luskan. In only a few months, he knew she would still be alive and Jarlaxle would know of her existence.

"Just play along with them, do what they say. Sooner or later they'll take you to Jarlaxle. You will be fine," he stated dismissively then he turned once more to leave her there.

Through the hidden door and out of the shadows beside her stepped a drow he did not recognize.

"Excellent advice, my _iblith_ brother," the drow drawled. "Indeed, we will tell him in time that we have retaken one of his surface prizes. However, we would much like to tell him we have taken another."

"Do you mean me?" Entreri asked in stony disbelief. "Of what use are my paltry _iblith_ skills to Jarlaxle?"

"Your contributions are negligible, but we know he desires your return to us," the drow stated. "That is sufficient."

The stones verified this statement as well.

"And if I do not return with you?" Entreri asked.

"We keep her," the drow stated. "And Jarlaxle will not know of her presence in the Underdark for a very great while." The words were innocuous, but the intent behind them was clear. Calihye actually went a little weak in the knees.

"Please, Artemis," she whispered desperately.

He pitied her. He truly did. The principles he'd come to develop over the past several years began to rear their ugly heads, making it very difficult for him to walk away.

"I have concerns of my own, Calihye," he finally answered. Then he spoke to the drow beside her. "I would not damage her overmuch. Jarlaxle will not take kindly to the spoiling of his treasures. He has uses for her and will be glad to see her again. Take her to him and claim your reward. But do not look for me to give a damn."

Then Entreri turned to walk away. Her path was her own to make.

"Tell him," the drow said harshly behind him. He glanced back to see the elf give the woman a shove forward toward him.

"I'm pregnant," she stated, looking at him with large fearful eyes.

"I am carrying your child."

True-came the verification from the stones.


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

"I am carrying your child."

Calihye's words hung between them, and Entreri felt like all the air had been sucked out of his lungs.

"That's not possible," he managed at last.

"Oh, I think it is," came her sharply defensive reply.

What kind of tricks were the gods playing on him, he decided, that such an ill-considered, short-lived, and unhealthy union as his with Calihye should so easily result in a child when it had taken years-and the loss of three babies-for him and Dwahvel to have Guendoline?

Unbidden into his mind sprang the memory of the night his wife had the third miscarriage. He'd been strong for her when she'd told him through heartbroken sobs that it was over. He'd held her and comforted her to the utmost of his ability. But once she'd finally gone to sleep, he'd gone downstairs and sat in the darkness on the steps of the warehouse with his face in his hands.

He couldn't take it any longer. He couldn't see his wife hurting so badly. He couldn't bear the helplessness of knowing that he could make no difference in the outcome. He couldn't handle knowing that so much of his happiness rested in such a fragile thing as an unborn baby.

He had no idea how to be a father. He had no reason to think for a moment that there was anything about him worth passing down to a new generation. His own childhood had been marked by viciousness and betrayal. He knew how terrible a place the world really was.

But he still wanted it. He still wanted to give his wife a child.

And a few months later, he'd lain beside her one night and asked for it to happen. He'd asked that whatever god was willing to listen to him would give them that baby. He'd asked that he might be made worthy of it.

And someone had heard him.

When he held his daughter for the first time, he knew how it felt to be responsible. All his life he'd never looked out for anyone but himself. Even with Dwahvel, he took comfort in knowing she was a woman of immense resource and strength. He leaned on her as much as she leaned on him.

But this tiny little infant in his arms was helpless. She had no resources. He was all that stood between her and the evils of the world. Her welfare, her education, her future, and her happiness depended on her father.

He was her father. And he was responsible for her.

And he knew he would do anything it took to protect that little life, to guide it and love it-to make it happy.

Now he looked at Calihye's body as if he could see within it to the life inside. However little he might care about Calihye, he did care about that innocent life he'd caused to be. He was responsible.

But wouldn't Jarlaxle have said something those long years ago if he'd also had Entreri's child in his possession?

Not likely, he decided. He'd more likely raise the boy—for Entreri was suddenly certain it had to be a boy-as his own little project, the son for the father.

Then Entreri looked at the drow who stood behind Calihye, a distinct smirk on his dark face as the warrior enjoyed Entreri's discomfiture.

Perhaps Jarlaxle did not know. Perhaps he would not know for years. Not until the child of Entreri was ready to join the ranks of Bregan D'aerthe as its newest warrior, a handsome gift for the group's leader indeed.

There was only one problem with that, Entreri decided.

No child of his would ever be raised by drow elves.

And with that thought he exploded into action. The vampiric dagger he pulled from his belt went spinning end over end to catch the surprised drow soldier right in the eye. Calihye noticed with interest that it was not the blade that impacted, but the blow from the hilt alone was enough to drop him to the ground in pain.

Entreri sprinted forward to retrieve the dagger as two more drow stepped out from the shadows. He shoved Calihye behind him and pulled Charon's Claw, extending a curtain of ash between them and their attackers.

"Is that all of them?" he asked hurriedly. At her nod, he pushed her further away toward the street. "Run," he instructed.

As she did, he set into the two remaining combatants as the third still rolled on the ground in agony, his hands pressed to his face. Entreri believed the blow might have dislodged the elf's eyeball.

The remaining two did their best, they really did, but too many years of experience combined with the arcane powers of the shadowstones—which they were not expecting at all-made Entreri entirely a target completely out of their reach.

In short order, the three were variously stunned, blinded, or otherwise incapacitated on the ground. He walked over to the blinded leader and checked the socket of the elf's eye. The eyeball was still there.

"You'll heal," Entreri told him. "Put ice on it." Then he pricked the dark skin of his neck with the dagger, bringing just a touch of blood to the surface and dragging out the tiniest portion of his soul with it.

"You are now dead men. You will not follow us. You will not seek us. If you see us, you will not approach. I wish no quarrel with Jarlaxle and will not kill his men unless necessary. Do not make it necessary," Entreri instructed.

Then he slipped into the shadows and vanished utterly, leaving the three in various stages of injury and astonishment on the ground.

The dagger in his hand and the sword at his side fairly buzzed with excitement. Both had tasted blood in the encounter and the sensation after so long without made the blades nearly delirious for more.

Now each demanded a kill in voices so loud and insistent that Entreri had to stop running after Calihye to master and dismiss them both. Charon's Claw actually burned hot in his hand for a moment until he pushed his will onto the sword's, forcing its obedience to him.

But he could feel the resentment still. He could hear the sword's voice. Coward. You should have killed them.

And as Entreri picked up his pace again, he couldn't help but consider the charge against him. Should he have killed the three? That would certainly have prevented their pursuit in the future.

But he meant it when he said he had no wish for a quarrel with Jarlaxle. And the three had not been very worthy opponents. It had felt very much like sparring with Cullon and Ballentin. In fact, he'd had to pull back a time or two from attempting to teach them during the match.

He shook himself hard at this. He was no longer a teacher. He was back in the unfeeling streets of Calimshan. At any moment, he might meet with a real challenge, an enemy he would be forced to kill to save his own life.

He did not know for certain if the three drow would heed his warning and forget they ever saw them. He hoped they would if for no other reason than the inconvenience of being forced to keep watch for them.

But when he caught up with Calihye and shadowalked her back to his room at the inn, he lost no time in securing the door and window with the various traps and devices he'd found in his bag, something he'd not bothered to do while alone.

She attempted to talk with him at first, but his short, uninformative answers dissuaded her at last. Once she had a decent meal inside her, she grew sleepy and he told her to take the bed. She made room for him beside her, but instead he napped lightly in a chair, ever watchful for possible attack.

Eight years of peace and security had not dulled his instincts, kept sharp by regular trips into the wilds defending the caravans of his employers. In fact, he made a point to take the most dangerous of them himself for that very reason. He had too much at stake at home to allow any chink in his armor of experience and skill.

But as he slept, the sound of Calihye's sigh in the darkness entered his dreams and for a moment he was back in his own bed at home again. Dwahvel lay beside him, their infant baby in the crook of her arm, where they'd fallen asleep again after a midnight feeding.

In that moment of peace and rest and quiet, he knew that everything he ever wanted, everything he'd ever needed lay right there beside him. The entire world could come down around him, but as long as he had his wife and his child, he could begin again.

A step outside his door roused him to immediate awareness. But the step moved past and opened a door down the hall. Several minutes of high alertness and shadowmagic passed before he was comfortable in his conclusion that another guest in the inn had simply gone to his room and was now sound asleep, judging from the snores.

But the illusion of peace was shattered inside him. His world had indeed come crashing down, and somewhere in the future, his wife and little girl had lost him. What if he never came back home? What if he got himself killed somehow in the past? What if he'd just vanished from their lives forever?

Who would take care of them? Where would they go? Certainly they had friends enough to take them in, if anyone else survived the disaster. But they'd lost everything. The house and everything in it was a pile of rubble, scorched and shredded by the passing of magic.

Somewhere far up ahead, they needed him. He had to get home somehow.

Then he looked over at Calihye's sleeping form. She was carrying his child. When he got home again, he would have an eight year old in tow-and that eight year old's mother. What would he tell Dwahvel?

And with that thought, all idea of sleep vanished from his mind for the rest of the long, dark night.


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Just before daybreak the next morning, he determined that whatever else he did, he had to find a more permanent place to live if he were going to be stuck in Memnon until his eight year prison term was up. So with strict injunctions to Calihye not to leave the room for any reason, he headed out into the streets to try to plan once more.

His steps led him after a while to a large cemetery on the outskirts of town where he had an unobstructed view of the morning sunrise. After a while, his head felt a bit clearer and he had a plan of sorts which he did not hesitate to set into action.

He returned to the lodgings of the crusty wizard Grimandi, who'd helped him the previous day. The building was not a large one, and not in the primary commercial district of the town. In fact, it was downright unassuming in its architecture, but the stones gave him distinct images of layers and layers of magical warding around the building.

Grimandi clearly liked to keep a low profile, and that suited Entreri perfectly.

The wizard met him at the door after some prolonged knocking, clearly less than pleased to see him again. However, this time, Entreri had a proposition. In exchange for lodgings and a place to do business, Entreri would expand Grimandi's magical offerings to include shadowmagic as well.

"That sort of knowledge is not easily obtained in Memnon. Or indeed anywhere else in Faerun," the wizard had stated, and Entreri could tell he was intrigued. "And valuable-to the right people." Then the wizard stood up from his desk and reached up behind him to pull a small wooden chest from the shelf.

"This particular project," Grimandi continued, and his voice took on a note of exasperation, "is one I was assigned some time ago now, and I have so far been unsuccessful in breaking the curse that has apparently been cast on this thing."

He opened the chest to reveal a wide, ornate silver ring set with an odd purple stone. "The client who gave this to me said that has powers of translation. Unfortunately, before he finished translating a single page of the book he was interested in, the ring had sapped so much of his strength that he barely managed to pull it off."

"He is getting very anxious for its return. See what you can do with it," Grimandi finished with a taunting grin, then sat back in his chair, arms folded, and awaited the results.

Entreri stared at the ring, aware that his skills as a wizard through the stones were fairly rudimentary. Although Mellisandra had taught him as much as she'd been able, using the stones for casting was difficult and very different from the usual mode of working for most wizards.

Some spells came easily to him; some were much more difficult. But Entreri was aware that this was a sort of test for him. If he truly had something to offer Grimandi as a partner of sorts, he'd better prove it now.

Entreri closed his eyes and began to concentrate on accessing the shadoweave. From Grimandi's intake of breath, he could imagine what the man was seeing. The shadows in the room had grown darker and had begun to loom larger.

Shortly, he could certainly see that the ring had been cursed by shadow magic. Further examination revealed that the curse was recently laid. But he could also see that the curse had been rather sloppily set.

Cursebreaking was not something he'd dealt with very much, but this particular bit of magic pulled on threads of necromancy, as did much of the shadoweave. The curse was a life-draining spell, and his years of experience with the jeweled dagger had given him insight into that particular branch of necromantic activity.

He concentrated and tried to feel the way the curse was hung, to identify the linchpins of power that gave it binding force. Then he saw the weakest spot in the chain and inserted a little spell of his own within. The energy of that little spell was enough to overset the rest of the links and cause the curse to fall apart before him.

Entreri opened his eyes and picked up the ring. Nothing of shadow hung around it any longer.

Then he tossed it nonchalantly to the wizard, who caught it out of reflex rather than a desire to hold the thing in his bare hands.

"Try it," Entreri instructed.

The wizard nervously licked his lips and looked around the room. "I don't have anything in here to translate," he hedged.

Entreri pulled a clean sheet of vellum toward him and wrote a short statement upon it in the language of the drow. His grammar wasn't perfect, he knew, but it would be sufficient for a test. "Can you read this?" he asked the man as he pushed the paper across the desk to him.

Grimandi studied the oddly curved writing before him, his eyes squinted in thought. "It appears to be similar to elven but isn't something I am familiar with," he stated at last. Then he added, "And no, I cannot read it."

Entreri gestured at the ring.

The wizard hesitated once again and gave Entreri a long, measuring look.

"Either you trust me or you don't," Entreri stated. "If you begin to feel weak, pull it off again."

Finally, Grimandi sighed and put the ring onto his forefinger. It slid on as if made for him, accommodating its size to fit its wearer. The wizard paused a moment to check his condition, then with a nod of his head, peered down at the writing on the desk before him.

"Do you still doubt me?" he read aloud. Then he looked at Entreri and stated, "No. I do not doubt you. The ring works as it should and I feel no odd effects at all from it."

Grimandi tested it on one or two other documents that he suddenly realized he had on his shelves before he finally took it off again with a relieved smile. "Excellent work, Barrabus," he stated. "I believe we might be able to reach an understanding."

Entreri agreed with reserved politeness. Then the wizard gestured at the paper and asked, "What language is this?"

Upon Entreri's answer, the man paled a little and gave him a long searching look. Then apparently he decided questions were perhaps not in order at the time and simply nodded.

So the wizard had agreed to partner with him for lodgings and a place to do business-for a percentage of course and additional information on the future. This Entreri absolutely refused to oblige him on, to which Grimandi responded with a shrug and an "I had to ask."

Grimandi worked outside the pasha structure of Memnon, the primary reason Entreri had gone to him in the first place. His clientele consisted primarily of local merchants and the lesser pashas of the outlying regions, since the main ruling force of Memnon had enough clout to employ personal wizards.

However, there was always a freelance market and Grimandi had made a fairly secure place for himself within that market.

And he had to admit that partnering with someone with skills and knowledge of the elusive shadow magic would add something to his portfolio of offerings that no other wizard in town could touch. In the end, it was good business for both of them.

Entreri headed back to the inn with a feeling of satisfaction. Perhaps things were looking up a bit.

When he reached the door of the room, however, his satisfaction vanished. The door was unlocked and his traps disabled. Calihye was not inside.

He anxiously scanned for sign of struggle. The window traps were still intact. That meant they had to have taken her through the door.

But as he stepped into the hallway to pursue, she came out of the bathing room, her hair wet and a length of drying linen wrapped around her.

"I thought I told you to stay in the room," he began angrily as he escorted her back inside and retrapped the doors. "Or have you forgotten that a band of drow elves would very much like to have you back in their clutches?"

"I only went down the hall," she retorted. "There is no way they could have followed you through shadow back to the room." She shivered a little at the mention of shadow or from the cold of her wet skin. He didn't know and didn't care.

"Unless they already know where we are," he stated icily. "Clearly they knew to where to find me in order to spring that little trap in the street. In the future, I suggest you do as I tell you if you want to stay alive."

She sat down on the edge of the bed and looked up at him with large, liquid eyes. "Please don't be angry," she said softly. "I just wanted to look good for you when you came back." Then she let a corner of the large towel slip off her shoulder, exposing the top of her breast.

Dwahvel would kill her, he decided. Then he said, "Put some clothes on," but not in too unkind a voice. After all, for Calihye it had been only a few weeks since they had been lovers.

As she dressed, he made a point not to watch her, but he also did not turn his back to her. After all, for Calihye it had also been only a few weeks since she'd tried to kill him.

"I'm hungry," she said as she slipped into one of his clean shirts, which she'd clearly taken from his pack. At his accusing glance, she explained, "My things are being laundered."

"Where else have you been this morning?" he demanded.

"Only downstairs to ask for laundry service and to clean up a little," she replied. "But I would like to get something to eat."

He agreed to go to the inn's common room downstairs and request a meal to be sent up. However, when it came, he did not allow the proprietor to enter the room.

"Need your privacy, eh?" the portly man had said with a laugh. "I understand!"

Entreri had simply taken the food tray from his hands and shut the door firmly behind him.

Throughout the meal, eaten in silence on his part, Calihye had kept up the conversation without him. She'd offered a summary of her experience with the drow soldiers-an experience he did not envy her, having endured the same kind of mental abuse during his days in Menzoberranzan.

She cried a little, but he did not move to comfort her in the manner she clearly expected. He did however assure her that as long as she was with him, he would see to her safety. "They will not take you again," he stated, "as long as you stay with me."

"I will stay with you, Artemis," she replied and looked up at him soulfully through tearful lashes. "I am sorry I ever left you." Then she reached out to take his hand across the table. He let her hold it for only a brief moment before pulling away again, ostensibly to gather the dishes back onto the tray.

At long last, her clothing was brought up to the room once more and she began to dress. This time, he did turn his back a little as she made a point of pulling off his shirt in a slow, seductive fashion.

The move out of the inn to Grimandi's lodgings was essential, he decided, and could not happen quickly enough. For Entreri, it was his only hope to survive.

Upon arrival that afternoon at the wizard's building, he'd intended that Calihye have her own room. Unfortunately, there was only one room available, and in fact Grimandi had to empty that room of an elaborate arcane experiment just to make a place for a bed.

As Entreri entered the room and dropped his pack onto the armless wooden chair that sat in the corner, he eyed that narrow bed suspiciously. Calihye dropped upon it with a tired sigh, then shifted to the edge to make room for him.

Dwahvel would kill her, he decided anew. But he would not give his wife grounds to murder him as well.

He did not look forward to sleeping in a chair for the next eight years, but by the gods, until he could establish a place for himself large enough for two beds, he would do so.

He could feel Calihye's gaze on him as he pulled off his leather vest and laid aside his swordbelt.

It was going to be a very long eight years.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Calihye lay on the only bed in the room of the wizard's building and watched as Entreri trapped the door and window before finally unbuckling his swordbelt.

Every movement was specific and careful. She watched as he shrugged out of his heavy leather vest and reached into the inside pocket for a small green leather bag which he hung around his neck.

She waited for him to undress completely and moved over in the narrow bed to make room for him, but he remained fully clothed and sat down in the small armless chair, pushing it back to rest his head against the wall.

"I don't bite," she said at last.

He just gave her a look and after a moment she shrugged.

"I told you I was sorry, Artemis," she began once more, wondering how much longer she would have to apologize before he began to treat her like he actually knew her and not like a stranger.

"Don't call me that," he responded. "I think it is best, given the circumstances, that I use an alias. Barrabus will do."

"Barrabus?" she repeated in a tone of disbelief. "That lacks musicality and mystery. Artemis Entreri is the name of a rogue, an assassin, an adventurer. Barrabus sounds like a farmer."

He snorted at that but could not disagree.

"Perhaps if you added something to it," she continued in a teasing voice as she leaned up on her elbows to look at him, her shirt hanging open to reveal glimpses of her breasts. "How about Barrabus the Gray?"

Entreri looked down at the skin of his hands. Since his return, the gray pallor that seemed to lurk just beneath his normal coloring had been more pronounced. The shadow inside him, he considered.

Outside, night had begun to fall in earnest in the way that it could only in the desert south. Heat and light gave away almost without pause to darkness and cold. A chill began to creep in through the window and he walked over to the bed to reach across to the curtains.

Calihye rolled over on her back as he approached. He paused, then resolutely reached over her to pull the draperies shut against the night air. Before he could step back, she'd taken his wrist in her hand and pulled him to sit beside her.

"Perhaps a new name is best," she declared. "A new start. I would very much like to begin again with you. Can we start again . . . Barrabus?"

He considered her offer. It would certainly be easier to start fresh with her-but only as traveling companions. He did not want her to believe that it would be possible to pick up with him where she'd left off in Damara. After a pause, Entreri nodded.

"Excellent," she declared matter of factly. "Good night." Then she rolled away from him to the farthest side of the bed.

After several minutes of internal debate, he finally lay down on the bed with his back to hers.

It certainly beat sleeping in the chair.

As he settled in next to her, Calihye allowed herself a small, private smile.

The next day, he found that his landlord Grimandi had been busy. The wizard had returned the ring he had disenchanted and had picked up another assignment for him.

This time, the box held an unusual book, the cover of which was made of extremely fine grained peachy leather. Human skin, Entreri recalled. He'd seen various books over the years bound in tanned human leather, and the contents were always disturbing and frequently dangerous.

"Are you certain you wish to bring an object of this character into your house?" he asked the wizard.

"Why?" Grimandi asked nervously. "Can you sense something about it?" Entreri watched as the wizard cast a divining spell over the tome.

"Its very appearance tells me more than I wish to know about its contents," Entreri replied after a consultation of his own from the shadow side of the weave revealed little more about it than extreme age, well preserved magically. "But no, I sense nothing particularly dangerous in the book itself. It is the contents that concern me."

Grimandi gave a sigh of relief then opened the book to a heavily illuminated page toward the beginning. "My employer believes that this book was written soon after the fall of Netheril. It apparently contains valuable information about the magic of the Netherese, including hints as to the nature of the shadovar."

Grimandi paused for dramatic effect, but Entreri only waited for the man to continue, having lived for the past eight years with the reality of the return of the Shade Enclave to Faerun—if only by rumor for the most part.

"So why doesn't he read it himself? Translation can no longer be an issue," Entreri stated.

Grimandi nodded, "Indeed. But there is still a layer of protection laid over the book that is preventing his comprehension of the text. I have tried for myself and though I can read the words easily, a persistent fog prevents me from truly understanding what I read." Then Grimandi shook his head in frustration and added, "It is most infuriating."

"My employer wishes for you to try," Grimandi ventured, holding the ring of translation before him as a sort of offering. "And if you are able to comprehend what you read, you can transcribe certain sections for him to read at his leisure."

Entreri sighed. He was not at all interested in reading a book on Netherese history, especially one bound in human skin. Nor was he interested in improving his penmanship by copying like a schoolboy—not that he'd ever been a proper schoolboy.

However, a job was a job, so he agreed to try.

The book was indeed shadowed over by a glamour of confusion—shadowed being the key term. With only a little effort, he was able to filter out the confusion spell and read the words without hindrance.

Soon, he was installed at one of the wizard's large desks with a stack of paper and set of sharpened quills at hand and with another long sigh, set to work.

As he worked, the history unfolding before him became interesting. But as he read the theories concerning the fate of the city of Thultanthar, the City of Shade, a chill ran through him. Had Shar herself taken the city into shadow? Was the essence that tinged his skin somehow linked to the Mistress of the Night?

Assassins regularly sought Shar's protection and guidance. Many worshiped her as the mother of deeds done in darkness.

Entreri himself had never called upon anything but his own prowess to empower his actions, and he'd openly disdained those whose skills had to be bolstered by enslavement to Shar in order to succeed.

As he continued to read, it became apparent that as the writer progressed through his history, he seemed to grow confused. The history of the Netherese began to degenerate into ramblings about Shar herself, then began to contain spells—part magical, part clerical-designed to bring the writer into a closer communion with Shar in order to understand what she had done to Thultanthar.

Then the writer began to go truly mad, in Entreri's opinion. He began to chronicle his attempt to take something of Shar and her shadow plane into himself. His spells grew riskier and his components more horrific to obtain.

He described the need to take life in order to achieve the rebirth into shadow he desired. He wrote of ritualistic killings required to further his goals-killings of the elderly, then the powerful, then the innocent, and then the very young. Each death provided an essential component to the elaborate working of magic he hoped would make him some sort of immortal.

A shade.

Entreri looked down at his own skin.

This writer was attempting to become a shade. He was attempting to wrest free a piece of his own soul to exchange for a piece of shadow.

Entreri was horrified by the thoughts of what he had taken through his dagger to dwell inside him.

Did he possess within him a piece of Shar herself? Was this the shadow that inhabited him? The essence that lurked beneath his skin?

Disturbed beyond measure, he closed the book with a slam and walked away from it into the sunlight streaming into the window.

He held his hand out in the light and was appalled by the deepening gray tone that had come into his skin as he'd read.

He'd never wanted that. He'd never asked to be made part-shade.

He didn't want to have anything at all to do with Shar or the Netherese or the shadovar.

He walked back to the desk, intending to give the book right back to Grimandi. He would not translate this particular book for anyone, he decided. The knowledge that lay within could rot.

But as he leaned over the desk to pick it up again, a gust of wind blew through the window, opening the book again to a chapter near the end.

He glanced down to close it again, but a phrase caught his eye- "the return of the noonday sun".

Without intending to do so, he sat down again and began to read.

The section was apparently some kind of prophecy that the writer had been given by Shar herself. It told of a season of waiting then a return to power with the triumph of shadow over magic itself. There would be a time of great upheaval and darkness over the entire world and Shar would be more powerful than ever before.

But, it warned, Shar's followers must beware the return of the noonday sun. Amaunator, Netherese god of the sun, would fade away and allow Lathander to take his place. The god of morning would be no match for Shar and her power. He would not be able to stop her from destroying magic and ruling the world.

Only the return of the noonday sun could threaten Shar's rule. And on that day Lathander would throw off his disguise of so many years and take back his place of power and authority as Amaunator, god of the sun.

Then there would be war between day and night, between light and darkness. And Shar would prevail!

Entreri closed the book again.

The noonday sun, he thought to himself. Lathander is actually an ancient Netherese sungod in disguise, biding his time until an incredible war between night and day.

The jaded part of him scoffed at the idea.

Then he recalled the blue flame that had destroyed his life. Was this Shar's attack on magic? Had the ancient prophecy actually come true?

And was the world on the brink of a great upheaval? Was Shar poised to take over all of Abeir-Toril?

What kind of world would his little girl grow up in? Then he considered Calihye's child as well. What about him?

He had eight years to get ready for it, he realized. He had eight years to get his son ready for whatever came after the blue flame passed them. He knew that in that moment his life had changed dramatically, and he had no idea what would happen to him once that moment came again.

He had to make a way to provide for Dwahvel and Guendoline in the here and now that would carry them past that day in the future.

He had to make a way to provide for his son so that even if he ceased to exist, the boy would still have his provision for the future and a sense of purpose that he did not trust Calihye to provide.

The jaded part of him grew quiet as he considered the reality of the future that he knew lay ahead of him.

Then an image of the huge tapestry in the temple of Lathander popped into his mind. Was that meant to depict Amaunator come back to Faerun? Would the power of the noonday sun be enough to hold back the darkness of blackest night?

And if it wasn't, what hope would there be for his children if he was no longer around?


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

"How's it coming, Barrabus?" Grimandi asked him quietly for the sixth time in as many hours.

"Fine," Entreri answered, stretching out his cramping, ink stained fingers. "The requested sections are complete."

"Excellent!" came the wizard's response. "My employer is getting truly eager to have his book returned to him."

"And I shall return it," Entreri replied firmly.

"No, I don't think so," Grimandi stated. "My employer would not wish his identity widely known."

Entreri looked up steadily at Grimandi from across the large desk. The wizard was self-centered and very intelligent, as wizards were usually found to be. But he wasn't at all certain the man was a good judge of character.

After all, the wizard believed Calihye to be a charming young lady.

Before Entreri turned over what he believed to be a very dangerous book of instructions on creating a powerful, evil, practically immortal entity to Grimandi's employer, he wanted to know just who in Memnon had such an interest in the things of shadow.

"Do you know what this book is?" Entreri asked the wizard.

"Not really," the man replied. And Entreri was gratified to see the wizard grow pale at his description of the contents.

"Read it for yourself," Entreri offered with a gesture toward the pages on the desk.

Grimandi's curiosity got the better of him for a moment, then he backed away. "This goes against the power of Mystra, does it not?" he asked cautiously.

"Oh, yes," Entreri replied. "There are distinct prophecies about the death of Mystra and spells that describe how to take a wizard's powers and turn them to serve shadow through a variety of compulsions and sacrifices."

"Sacrifices?" Grimandi squeaked.

"Of the wizard-usually," Entreri clarified, glad to see the man back away from the text before him. He did not want to kill Grimandi, but he would not knowingly allow anyone to perform the kinds of acts he'd read about in the book that lay so quietly on the table.

"I need to know what kind of person wishes to have this information," Entreri continued. "I think you are beginning to understand why."

"I have never met Herzgo Alegni in person," Grimandi stated. "I have been given various tasks to perform for him only through a mediator. But I do have an address."

Entreri picked up the grimoire in its grisly binding and gave Grimandi an inquiring look. "Aren't you taking the translation with you as well?" the man asked.

"Not yet," came the answer. "First I would like to know to whom I am giving it."

Grimandi provided an address, but with a warning. "I do not think you will be allowed to meet Alegni in person," he stated.

"Then he will not get his translation until I do."

Minutes later found Entreri walking down the street toward a slightly more affluent section of town. The streets were still brown and dirty, but with occasional glimpses through archways into courtyards of lush greenery and crystal fountains.

The doorways were no longer plain arches, but began to be surrounded by colorful mosaics, some of which depicted images such as landscapes or trade activities-perhaps as a sort of calling card for the residents.

Soon he came to a doorway marked by an elaborate mosaic of red, black and purple geometric shapes, curves predominating. He knocked at the beautifully carved and polished front door, which was quickly answered by a little woman in plain white robes.

"I have come to see your master, Herzgo Alegni," Entreri stated.

At the sound of his name, the woman dropped her eyes and shuffled away from him. "Wait here," she said.

He stood in the inner courtyard of the house, the smaller public one used to meet guests. A larger one for private use, he guessed, lay beyond an ornate paneled gate to the rear. Even then, the small courtyard was larger than any two rooms in Grimandi's building.

An elaborate fountain served as its centerpiece and statuary of various voluptuous women stood in beds of flowers and vines. If their expressions were more fearful than enticing, it could have been due to the fact that each one was nearly naked, their clothing torn away in a manner clearly intended to arouse.

Behind the gate into the private courtyard, Entreri could hear voices. Using his abilities to slip into shadow, he made his way close enough to the gate to hear what they were saying.

A very deep, sonorous voice demanded, "Get up! Make yourself presentable."

"Please, no more," a female voice replied. "Let me rest first."

There was the sound of a heavy slap. "Get up and make yourself ready for me. I will not lie in blood and filth," the deep voice commanded once more.

The slight sound of sandals on stone made Entreri aware that the woman was returning and he slipped back into place. "This way," she stated quietly.

He followed her down a hallway and to a set of stairs leading downwards into what could only be a basement. "Someone will be with you shortly," she said, then slipped away again as quietly and unobtrusively as a mouse.

He glanced around the small room he found himself in, noting the bookshelves full of odd parchments and vials as well as larger jars with odd green and red contents. He recognized the space as part of a magical laboratory, perhaps basic storage of spell components.

A door lay beyond the room, leading presumably to the larger laboratory proper.

Something moved in one of the jars and he stepped closer. Floating in a greenish glowing liquid was a red pulpy mass and connected to it by a purplish length of tissue was a small reddish blob. He peered at the blob and realized it was meant to represent some kind of stunted human with an oversized head and stumpy arms and legs curled into itself.

Then it moved. Five tiny little fingers reached out and grasped at the fluid that surrounded it.

A sudden sound on the stairs behind him drew his attention away from the thing in the jar and he looked up to see a hawkfaced man in a black turban and robes descending the stairs.

"You wished to see me," the man stated.

"Herzgo Alegni?" Entreri asked.

"Yes. I am Herzgo Alegni."

"I have something that belongs to you," Entreri held the book out before him. "Grimandi is most regretful, but he cannot read it. The effort has made him so ill that he cannot come to meet you himself."

The man in black frowned at that and gave a half-glimpse behind him up the stairs as if expecting someone.

"Very well," he said in a disappointed voice. "Grimandi will hear from me."

Entreri gave the man a bow and made his way back up the stairs and out the door of the house as quickly as decorum would allow.

He wandered aimlessly through the town, deep in thought, aware that his lie would very likely cause trouble for him and for Grimandi with this Herzgo Alegni, whoever he might be. Entreri entertained no belief at all that the man who had met him was Alegni himself. This man was merely a front for the one who sought the knowledge in the book. That man would be dangerous indeed. Entreri now knew what he sought. He sought immortality in shadow.

Soon, Entreri's steps led him deep into the city's market, a mass of covered stalls and tents that stretched for blocks in all directions. The mass of humanity before him was both oppressive and welcoming in its opportunity for anonymity.

He found himself standing before a stall of scarves and silks. A brooch lay prominently displayed in its velvet box, its unique golden structure housing a variety of beautifully polished stones. It was a twin of the brooch Dwahvel liked to wear-the one Mistress Wallingdam had given her on their first visit to her house.

He smiled a little as he remembered the way Dwahvel had stolen it right off the lady's collar during dinner, only to have it given to her as a gift by the end of the evening.

It had been a great blow to Dwahvel when the old lady had passed away some years later after a brief illness. Indeed, Entreri himself had missed seeing her at her husband's side until the old gentleman too died soon after—perhaps of grief.

He frowned and reached out to run one finger down the edge of the brooch. Perhaps it was the same one, he thought to himself. Perhaps this very brooch found itself sold to a merchant who traded it up the coastal road to Waterdeep. Perhaps in only a few months, this very brooch would find itself in his wife's possession. Perhaps he would pin it on her as she dressed for dinner.

He shook himself and looked away toward Waterdeep. Where was she now? He could not recall the number of days he'd stayed in Calimport with her before they left for Waterdeep. Was she right now at his side aboard Manfred Jarroll's ship _Bonfire_?

He missed her. He missed everything about her. All he wanted was to be with her. He rubbed his finger where his gold ring should be. There wasn't even a line of pale skin to mark its absence. It was as if that life had never existed.

And in truth, it didn't exist. It hadn't come to be yet.

All he had was the here and now, he realized. If he wanted to get back to his wife and daughter, he had to take care of the here and now.

So he turned away from Dwahvel's brooch and instead picked up a silk tunic and light trousers that looked to be large enough for Calihye.

When he returned to their lodgings at the wizard's house, he tossed the copy of the translation into the fire and watched it burn for a long moment. Then he went looking for Calihye.

He found her in the little courtyard beside the wizard's small fountain. This courtyard contained no statuary and only a few green plants. Clearly the wizard did not have a green thumb, whatever his magical skills might be.

He tossed the package of clothing to her and she ripped into it with a huge smile.

"Oh, how lovely!" she cried, holding the silky fabric up to her face.

"Maybe I can get my shirt back," he said wryly.

"Not hardly," she answered. "I like to sleep in it."

She stood up and held the tunic against her shoulders. He was relieved to see that it was probably going to fit. She was several inches taller than Dwahvel, not that he'd ever been one to shop for his wife either. Shopping was another of the mysteries of women like flowers and dishes. He always just asked the salesclerk to give him what he needed. And the clerks all knew Dwahvel well enough to offer him items she'd like to have.

Calihye ran past him to try on her new clothing, stopping long enough to give him a quick kiss on the cheek, something he absolutely did not want.

Then when she came back outside in her new outfit, he was aware that he'd actually done well in picking it out. The two pieces matched reasonably well and fit reasonably well.

Then she flashed him a thoroughly happy smile and said, "Thank you for thinking about me."

He was horrified. What had he done?

By all the gods, the last thing he'd wanted to do was give Calihye a present.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

Calihye strolled out into the courtyard in her new clothing, clearly thrilled with his gift.

"Let's go out!" she said with a laugh.

"No," came his immediate response.

"Please?" she begged. "I am so bored."

"Welcome to Calimshan," he answered. "It's a boring place."

"We could go get something to eat, take a walk, do anything but stay cooped up inside," she replied. "If you are afraid of meeting up with those drow again, give me a sword. Together, there will be no stopping us."

She had walked closer to him with that statement and had looked up at him, a martial glow in her eyes. Indeed, he'd seen her with a sword. She was a deadly combatant and a remarkable warrior.

He remembered the life he'd once envisioned for them. He remembered how he'd thought to travel with her at his side, vanquishing any and all who dared to cross them, making their way across Faerun as adventurers, as lovers.

But that had not happened. Was not going to happen.

"No," he said firmly and turned away to walk inside.

"But, Artemis-"

"That is not my name any longer, remember?"

"Very well then, Gray, can we at least have dinner brought here?" she asked, her voice turning sharp.

"That will be fine. I'll see if Grimandi wants to join us," he answered as he headed back inside.

"I don't want to eat with Grimandi," she called out after him. "I want to eat with you." But he had already gone inside.

Calihye sat on the little bench beside the small fountain and waited. She ran her hands over the lovely silk of the material, delighted by the soft feel of it. Even the color was perfect, bringing out the blue of her eyes.

He'd done well. But now he was angry.

Surprise, surprise.

If she knew anything about Artemis Entreri—excuse me, Barrabus the Gray, she corrected herself sarcastically—it was that he could be counted on to be fine one moment and angry the next.

He'd been that way in Damara. Well, she considered, he'd become that way. When she'd first met him, he'd been cold, controlled, unreadable, and as deadly a warrior as she'd ever met.

She'd hated him at first sight, even as she'd envied his skill. Then as she'd been around him and his partner Jarlaxle during those months in Vaasa, struggling to gain the top spot with her companion Parrissus, she'd seen little glimpses that there might be a person behind all that deadliness. She could tell that Jarlaxle sometimes drove him to distraction and that Athrogate annoyed him beyond measure.

But as long as she'd had her Parrissus beside her, she'd not given another thought to Artemis Entreri. He was a man very much like most of the men she'd ever known, cold and demanding—she unconsciously ran a finger down the pale line of scar that still marked her face.

All the hurts of her life had come from that kind of man-callous and cruel-like the drow, like the Citadel of Assassins. When Entreri had let her Parrissus die, she'd known he was just like the rest of them.

But something had happened to him in Damara. He'd come back from that awful castle in the wilderness a different person. She'd seen the way he looked at her. Behind all the coldness and the bitterness was a deep need-a need for her. And the vulnerability she saw in his eyes was a potent aphrodisiac indeed.

For once, she had the upper hand. For once, she was in control. And she loved every moment of it.

Soon her love for the way he made her feel began to turn into love for him.

But that love taken a hard blow when she was tortured by the Citadel of Assassins because of him. Then he declared he was leaving her. Just like Parrissus had left her. Just like everyone else she'd ever cared about, he was leaving her.

Now, Calihye decided, she was a wiser person. She would not let herself care about him again. He would not leave her again. Either he would dance to her tune, or she would leave him. And she would leave him hurting so badly, he would wish he'd never met her.

Inside their room, Entreri stood before the window, unable to shake the image out of his head. He was not a fanciful person, not by any means. But as he'd considered just how foolish it would be for Calihye to venture out where she might be spotted again by the drow that had held her captive, he'd had a sudden image of Jarlaxle teaching his son how to use a sword.

Oddly enough, Jarlaxle as weapons tutor did not disturb him. It was the vivid mental picture of the young man he'd seen that shook him. He could see the boy's dark, straight hair, his natural stance, his blue-gray eyes somewhere between his and Calihye's in color.

Given the inheritance from both sides, this young man would be a natural with the sword. Teaching him would be a pleasure-like Emory. This dark haired boy would be Emory's twin, yet opposite. Where Emory was fair, this young man would be dark. Where Emory was lighthearted, this young man could only be serious-given his inheritance.

Would Manfred Jarroll be offended if Entreri named him after his son? If he named this boy Emory too?

Entreri wished he could ask Dwahvel. She would know if it was a good idea. Then he considered exactly what it was he wanted to ask-could he name his son by another woman after the dead child of their friend.

He shook his head at this. Then he wished again he could ask her. Dwahvel would know the right thing to do and she would understand. Somehow when he got back to her, he knew she would understand.

Back downstairs, he asked Calihye what she thought of the name Emory.

"Why are you even thinking about names?" she asked him in return. "It'll be months before we even know if its a girl or a boy."

"It's a boy," Entreri stated.

"How do you know?" came her response and she didn't bother to hide her sarcasm. It was just like Artemis to be so sure of himself.

"I just do," he answered. "What do you think of the name Emory?"

"It's okay, I suppose," she finally replied. "But just what makes you so certain that it's a boy?"

He looked at her for a moment, as if considering his words. "I just am," he stated flatly at last. Then he turned and walked away.

Damn him.

He knew something she didn't know. She was fairly certain from his initial response that he hadn't known about the pregnancy. He'd seemed completely surprised by the news. But had he been in touch with those drow since? Had he gotten in touch with Jarlaxle somehow? That other one? Kimmuriel?

She shivered. It had been Kimmuriel that had delivered her into the hands of his three lackeys. It had been Kimmuriel who'd instructed them to keep her close at hand in case she was needed. Then he'd just disappeared.

Had Kimmuriel somehow known? The drow cleric that had healed her back in Damara had seen she was pregnant. He might have been able to tell the sex as well. Had Kimmuriel told Artemis something that he wasn't telling her?

She fumed. Somehow, she would tease, seduce, worry, or threaten Artemis into letting her in on his little secrets.

He looked like the same man she'd known in Damara, but he was different now. Something had changed in him. He was keeping things from her. He was distant and polite—more polite than he had ever been. But she had not managed thus far to get past that politeness to the place where she wanted to be.

She wanted to be essential to his happiness again. She wanted to be the answer to his questions. She wanted to be back inside his defenses and feel his need for her wrap her up in a warm embrace. Then she could have everything she wanted from him. He would give it to her without hesitation-just like he'd done before.

But he was different now. He was keeping secrets from her. He was holding back something about himself, and she would find out what it was. She would know if it killed them both.

Several days later, he returned from a short meeting across town to their room in the wizard's lodgings to find Calihye gathering up what few things he'd obtained for her.

"What are you doing?" he asked.

"Getting out of here," she answered. "I will not be your prisoner any longer."

"You are not my prisoner," he replied as he sank into a nearby chair, already tired of the discussion. It was the same one they'd had daily for the past week.

She complained that he didn't care about her. He told her that he cared very much about her safety and her welfare.

She complained that he was keeping secrets from her. He assured her that he was being as straightforward with her as he could and that he was holding nothing from her that would be of any consequence.

She complained that she was not allowed to leave the building. He explained that the only way he could keep her safe was to keep her out of sight.

She assured him that she could take care of herself. He reminded her that a trio of drow sub-lieutenants had taken her once and could do it again. She railed at him that she knew of the danger now and would be armed, unlike her previous capture which had taken place while she was wounded and naked after he had thrown her from a window. A long silence invariably followed.

Then finally, "No," was his unequivocal response each time.

But this time, the discussion took a different turn. "If I am not your prisoner, then what am I?" she asked.

"My guest," he answered.

"Nothing more than that?" she asked sadly. "I have told you how sorry I am about that night. I was out of my mind. I didn't want to hurt you, not really. But you were leaving and I didn't want you to go."

"Then you should have come with me instead of attempting to stab me to death," he finally responded with a sigh. So far, he had completely avoided making any kind of statement about the night in question. He had no desire to talk about it at all. Not with her. But now it was in the open.

"I am sorry. I am truly sorry," she repeated again, coming to kneel next to him. She reached up to touch his cheek, but he held her hand away from him. "Please, Artemis, give me another chance."

He felt sorry for her. Truly he did. It could certainly be no fun being cooped up all day every day in the same building. "Fine. We'll go out for dinner. But someplace nearby and well before nightfall."

Before he could stop her, she'd thrown her arms around him in delight. Somehow he managed to disentangle himself and stand without hurting her feelings. If she were going to be his responsibility for the next eight years, he did not want to worry at night about the possibility of her stabbing him in his sleep.

Dinner went well in his opinion. He'd paid no attention at all to what he ate, only that it was filling. But she had seemed to enjoy the meal and the outing. As they walked back to Grimandi's, she tucked her hand into his arm companionably.

Outside their lodgings, however, he worked loose of her when he turned the corner and noticed a large figure standing before the building. The creature was looking away and hadn't seen them yet, so Entreri pushed her back out of sight. "Stay here," he instructed as he stepped forward to confront the individual.

A tall, imposing tiefling lounged against the building in a nonchalant manner. He was well over six feet tall, and his fine black jacket and lacy white shirt contrasted with the distinctly demonic look of his black ram-like horns. "Are you the one they say is versed in shadow magic?" he asked in a deep, rich voice, the last of the sunlight making his red skin glow as if a fire burned inside him.

He knew that voice. He'd heard it before.

"I have a limited experience with it, yet more than most," Entreri stated easily. "Do you have a matter for research?"

"I am interested in shadow artifacts," the tiefling stated, pulling himself to his full height to tower over Entreri before continuing. "I am a collector of Netherese items—both magical and nonmagical."

"It is a sort of hobby of mine," the tiefling added with a grin that would have been charming on anyone but such an infernal looking being.

Entreri made certain that Charon's Claw was well hidden in the folds of his cloak before he replied, "I have no items of interest to you, then. My trade is in knowledge only."

There was a long silence as the tiefling appeared to study him. The setting sun cast a larger than life shadow of the being against the wall, the dark image of its curving horns seeming to stretch upwards toward the rooftop. Then the tiefling spoke again.

"If you come across anything of possible value to my collection," the tiefling said with another disarming smile, "ask for me at the Crippled Dog. Herzgo Alegni. They will know how to find me."

So this was Herzgo Alegni. He didn't have to consult the shadowstones to know the truth.

Then Alegni looked just past Entreri's shoulder at Calihye who'd moved in for a closer look. "Good evening, madam," Alegni addressed her with a gentlemanly nod.

With a show of complete indifference, Entreri entered the building, one hand on Calihye's back as if to assist her inside.

Inside the rooms, however, he unloaded on her. "I told you to stay back. Do you ever listen?"

"What harm was done?" she asked. "So a very odd looking person asked for artifacts. What is that to me?"

"That odd looking person was a tiefling, descended from demons, and this one is affiliated with agents of shadow," Entreri snapped back at her.

"How do you know his affiliations?" she asked scathingly.

Shadow clung to the creature like smoke in Entreri's vision. The stones had begun to throb in his vest pocket as one who appreciated them drew near. Who knew how much the tiefling had picked up from him as well.

"Pack," Entreri instructed her. "We are leaving."

"Tonight? This minute?"

"Yes. I will not risk staying here a moment longer."

"Out of fear of one tiefling. Did he frighten you that much?" she asked with a laugh.

He glared at her as she continued to ridicule him. "I had no idea Artemis Entreri was afraid of tieflings. Too many scary bedtime stories as a child?"

"Listen to me, Calihye," he stated firmly, nearing the end of his patience with her. "You will do as I say, when I say."

"So much for not being your prisoner," she snapped back. "You can go if you wish. I am staying here. I might even go visit the tiefling in your absence."

"I care not where you go or what you do," Entreri answered icily. "But you will not endanger my child. Pack. I will return soon."

He stalked out the door in a fury, intending to find the next passage by ship out of Memnon. It did not matter to where-except he could not go to Waterdeep and would not go to Luskan.

Once he'd left, Calihye glared at the door behind him. It was clear to her now. He didn't love her. He didn't care about her. All he cared about was the piece of himself he'd accidentally left behind with her.

And that wasn't good enough. She was done. She was done with Artemis Entreri. And now she was leaving him.

Then she considered a shop she'd seen only a short distance down the road. An apothecary.

She entered the shop, just as the old female gnome who ran it was preparing to close.

"I need to end a pregnancy," she declared. "How much?"

The little gnome named a price that caused Calihye's eyes to narrow. That would take nearly half of what she'd managed to find lying around unguarded in the wizard's house.

"But I'll do it for free in exchange for the remains when it's over," the gnome offered cagily. "Necromancers pay through the nose for living essence of unborn child."

Calihye paled a little at the idea of living essence-just how would such a thing be kept living and what would be done with it?

Then she considered Entreri's words. He did not care for her. She knew that now. That was the secret he kept from her. She no longer had a place inside his heart.

Fine.

She didn't want it. Now that she was free of the drow, she didn't need him any longer.

He was done with her and she with him, she decided. Time to cut the ties that bound them. It would be better for them both.

But there was the matter of payment. Finally, she nodded at the old gnome.


	11. Chapter 11

Chapter 11

When Entreri came back to the rooms, passage secured, he found her sitting on the edge of the bed. Her things were still cast about the room unpacked.

"I thought I told you to pack. We leave in half an hour," he stated.

"You leave. I am not going with you," she declared in a flat, emotionless voice. "There is no more child for you to concern yourself with."

He jerked her up from the bed by the arm and consulted the shadowstones. She spoke the truth.

"What did you do, Calihye?" he asked furiously.

"I have been to the alchemist," she snarled. "You go where you like. I am staying here."

He took a deep, sharp breath and stepped back. "So you ended it just like that," he managed hoarsely. "Without even telling me."

He was truly hurt.

She was surprised at the depth of the hurt in his eyes. Then the hurt was so bad he couldn't even look at her. He just blinked and stared at the floor.

A feeling ran through her like quicksilver and she knew in an instant what it was.

Victory.

She had won at last.

She had not managed to tear at him with her dagger, but she'd struck him to the heart now. She faced him squarely, fully intending to see that the knife went deep.

"I didn't just end it, Artemis," she continued in a slow, deliberate voice as if she were speaking to an idiot. "I surrendered its living essence for spell components." She paused to let that information sink in, prolonging the pain. Then she added tenderly, "Do you still wish to name it Emory?"

He could see the strange little creature from Herzgo Alegni's laboratory. He could see its little hand silhouetted against the light.

And he knew what was going to happen to the tiny being that should have grown up to be his son.

Then he did slap her, hard enough to cast her down across the bed, her ears ringing with the force of the blow.

"Get out," he said, his voice harsh and thick with emotion.

Calihye grabbed the few things she could, smiling through the tears pouring out of her eye where he had slapped her, and dashed out into the street.

Only a few blocks away from Grimandi's house, she glanced up to see a tavern sign bearing the figure of a dog with one paw missing. Inside, she asked the bartender if he knew where she could find Herzgo Alegni. "I know of someone with a sword he would find very interesting."

Entreri stood in the room shaking.

He'd lost him. He hadn't been there to protect his child and now he was gone. Lost to evil in a way Entreri could not begin to imagine.

He ran out into the street to the apothecary's shop. The little gnome was nowhere to be seen, the shop closed and the door locked. Desperately, he broke the front window and climbed inside. He looked everywhere for a jar, a vial, a decanter of any kind that might contain what was left of his hope.

Nothing. The counters were empty. The storage room held only herbs and potions.

He was gone. His son was lost to him forever.

Outside in the street, the night stretched overhead, black and empty, and its darkness seemed to invade his very soul.

Why had he been sent here? Was there a curse upon him?

Had the consequences of his life been kept only temporarily at bay in Waterdeep with his wife and his daughter? Had they been only a momentary vision of hope? A taste of happiness and peace so that his punishment would be more complete?

Was he finally getting what he truly deserved, to be dragged back into unappeasable, inescapable evil? To face this hell alone with nothing but the memories of his loss? Loss of his son, of his daughter, of his wife?

He stood there in the middle of the street for a moment, his chest heaving. Then he ran. With no conscious thought of his destination, Entreri found himself at the temple of Lathander.

He burst through the front door and into the empty room to stand before the large tapestry.

"You claim to offer second chances. You say each morning brings a new day," he cried out desperately at the image.

"I call on you now, god of the morning, to give me back my second chance!" and his voice began to break.

Entreri sank to his knees, his cheeks wet. Then he looked up at the image of Lathander.

"God of the heavens by morning and by noon," he pleaded, "I just want to go home."

The golden brazier burned brightly overhead, casting his shadow beneath him, a shadow that flickered and jumped in the firelight.

Then from within his vest pocket he felt the shadowstones throb and hum, their activity growing more and more violent, so violent that he could no longer be in proximity to them and he pulled them out and tossed them to the floor before him.

A voice from the stones spoke, a dark female voice, filling him with dread. "You have no home," it whispered. "You gave yourself to shadow years ago, and I saw you in shadow as you called upon my power to save you. Now I have claimed you as mine and brought you to your darkest place so you will know you truly belong to me."

Entreri felt the icy wash of complete darkness invade his soul as the dark goddess touched him-blackest night seemed to surround him and he was terrified.

But overhead, the golden brazier began to glow even brighter, not with fire but with an inner light, as if the sun itself had come into the temple. "I too claim this soul," came a voice from above him, ringing like a bell. "He has called on me and I have answered him."

"Why concern yourself with one so recently come to faith?" the dark voice asked out of the shadow before him. "He served me years before he ever looked toward you. Didn't you, Assassin? You are one of my very own."

Entreri knew that to be true. He knew what he'd done, what he'd been. He did not deserve mercy. He wanted to go back home, but he knew he was not worthy of the life he'd had there. Dwahvel and Guendoline deserved better.

But he could not help but want it. He wanted his second chance back. He just wanted to go home.

Before him, the tapestry shimmered and began to glow with a celestial light so bright he could not bear it, yet somehow he did. Then the giant figure of Lathander stepped forward into the room with a brightness and a power that overwhelmed Entreri and his breath left him in a rush.

"I have claimed this one as well, Shar," Lathander's voice shook the room with its majesty. "You would do well to let him go."

"I shall not!" the dark voice screamed in anger and the blackness before Entreri began to writhe and grow thicker and larger until the dark blot threatened to fill the room. A great black void stretched before him, a void he knew he deserved. He scrambled to his feet and backed away from it in desperation.

Then all Entreri could think about was Dwahvel and Guendoline. Let them be safe in Waterdeep. Let them be far from this-far from the destruction he would bring upon them.

The great glowing image of Lathander stood before him like a beacon. "Please," he managed to whisper, but the fullness of what he was asking eluded even him.

Lathander looked at him with pity and love. Then it turned to the darkness and with an upheld hand, poured light into the room, forcing the black void to back away from Entreri. "I honor this man's request. I have chosen him and I place my mark upon him. You shall not have him, Shar!" he roared.

Lathander then stepped closer to Entreri and bent down to place his hand upon his head. A flood of overwhelming light poured through him, and the mortal man fell to his knees with the onslaught of divine force.

"Then I take back what is mine of him!" Shar screamed and the sound was like the dragging of a metal gate down a slate floor.

The shadowstones lying before Entreri pulsed and melted out across his shadow as if coating it, and he felt a pulling at his soul, a sensation both excruciating and sickening.

He watched as the shadow before him rose up into solid form, and for a moment he felt as if he were staring out of two sets of eyes as the form turned into a body.

His body.

Then he felt a violent tearing inside him as if his soul was being literally pulled apart-the light and shadow inside him warring with one another.

He gasped in shock at the sensation, but within only a few moments it was over.

Entreri stood there staring at himself, his mirror image.

The two men looked at each other for a long moment in disbelief. Then without warning, the shadow version attacked.

Laughing as she went, Shar's black essence faded away into the night, leaving Entreri and his dark twin to destroy each other.

The shadow version of himself reached for his throat, but Entreri managed somehow to twist free and hit the man squarely in the jaw, then in the stomach. The other one kicked at his knee, causing it to give way painfully, but as he fell, he turned the fall into a leap, grabbing the man around the neck.

Somehow he managed to wrestle the man into a chokehold, and despite his dark twin's violent struggles, Entreri desperately held pressure on his neck until the man collapsed into unconsciousness.

He guided his twin's unconscious body to the floor and looked up to see that the image of Lathander had not vanished as Shar had done. Instead it knelt beside the gasping Entreri and looked him right in the eye.

He was in the presence of a god, he realized-and he had never felt so mortal, so unequal, so unworthy of this attention.

"Do not be afraid," the image said in a gentle voice. "You have called upon me and I have answered you. Will you allow me to keep you as my own?"

Entreri's thought were in turmoil. All the things Shar had said were true. He knew what he was. What he had always been. He remembered all the ones he'd killed-all the ones who'd deserved better than the fate they'd found at his blade. He remembered all the ones he'd failed to save-Emory Jarroll, his own unborn son. He had nothing to offer Lathander. He was not worthy of his notice.

As if the god read his mind, the image continued, "Do not look to the past, nor to what you have been, nor to what you have done. Look instead to the new day I am bringing to you. Look to the light of the morning sun rising in your life. You have called upon me and I have answered you, Artemis. Look to the dawn and do not be afraid."

Then the image gently asked him again, "Will you allow me to keep you as my own?"

"Yes," whispered Entreri. And he knew the thing he was doing would forever change his life. In what way, he was not sure, but he knew that he no longer belonged to himself alone. And the thought both disquieted and comforted him. "What do you want of me?"

"You will know what to do when the time comes," Lathander said in a soft voice. "Noon time is coming, the light of the noonday sun will brighten the world and you will bring my justice and mercy to a world in upheaval. You will also know me by the name Amaunator-the name I wore of old and will wear again in this new age."

Then the image looked down at the unconscious creature that lay on the floor before him. "I pity this one," Lathander said. "Shar has taken her part of you and has created this man who both is and is not Artemis Entreri."

Entreri couldn't help but feel for the man. Somehow he knew that this version of himself was governed by darkness, by despair, forced to live that life he'd been spared. "Is there no hope for him? No way to help him?" Entreri asked.

"You still bear that touch of shadow inside you, both from your past and from your present. Likewise, he is possessed of a touch of light from you," the image of Lathander said. "Perhaps it will be his salvation."

Then Lathander pressed a hand to the unconscious man's forehead. "He will know nothing of your life in Waterdeep. In his memory, he awoke in the oasis of Jlahran and chose to go back to sleep. He will not cross your path, nor that of anyone who knows you, at least not in such a way as will endanger you or your family."

Then Entreri looked down at the man's side to see that Charon's Claw was belted around his mirror image's waist. Yet the jeweled dagger still hung at his own hip.

"The sword has chosen," Lathander said sadly. "It belongs to him now. But the dagger is your burden to bear."

The man began to stir a little in Entreri's arms. "It is time, Artemis," Lathander said.

Entreri knelt beside the semiconscious form and took the man's face in his hands. "Listen to me," he instructed. "Leave Memnon. Go as far away from it as you can. Find a life for yourself. Find hope. Find peace," he whispered intently. Then he looked down at the man's belt. "And throw that sword in the sewer. Set yourself free of it, do you hear me?"

His dark twin began to groan and stir.

Then as the man sat up, he found himself alone in the temple of Lathander with a serious headache. What had possessed him to come in there? he wondered.

Then he began to remember. He'd been looking for Calihye. She'd left him after another fight. Oh, well, it had been good while it lasted, he supposed. He'd just better steer clear of the drow. After he finished off those three of Jarlaxle's that had held her prisoner, he wasn't sure Jarlaxle wanted to see him again.

He stood up and dusted himself off. His dagger was gone. Vaguely, he supposed Calihye had stolen it as well. Then a sound from behind him made him turn.

A young woman stood in the corner of the room, a very young thing, too young to be a priestess. "I thought I heard something," she said. "Have you decided to try prayer for your troubles, Barrabus?"

Foreigner, stranger. No, he was no longer Artemis Entreri. Barrabus was as good a name for him as any he supposed. Perhaps even Barrabus the Gray.

Then he looked up at the large tapestry before him to the image of Lathander on it. Lathander. The god of morning and new life. Why would a god like that ever listen to him?

"No," he said unequivocally and headed out the door.

As Barrabus the Gray passed an open sewer a block or so away from the temple, he was possessed of a sudden urge to pull the red blade at his side out of its scabbard and toss it away. He even had it part way out of the sheath when he came to his senses and shoved it firmly back into place.

Then he heard a deep voice behind him. "Oh, yes, I would certainly be very interested in something like that." He turned to face his enemy but a sudden blast of dark force knocked him unconscious. The last thing he saw was the smiling face of the tiefling.


	12. Chapter 12

Chapter 12

The little gnome carried her burden carefully. Her dark masters would be very pleased with this one, so new, so full of first life. Much newer than most she managed to obtain. They had hinted that their newest disciple would be ready to fully join their ranks soon. Alegni would be so pleased that his time had come.

Perhaps this very essence would be the last piece of the ritual to transform the cocky tiefling into a shade at last.

The gnome shuddered at that. Her associations with him had been unnerving at best, and downright frightening at times. He was power-hungry and arrogant, determined to remake the world in his image. The thoughts of his being even more powerful and practically immortal made her shiver.

The jar slipped in her grasp and she held it even more tightly. It would not do to drop it, she reprimanded herself.

She stopped beneath a streetlamp to adjust her hold, the light of the lamp providing plenty of illumination. Then with surprise, she watched the light grow even brighter and sharper, finally blinding in its intensity.

In the shadows of the private dungeon beneath his home, Herzgo Alegni played with his new toy-or new toys to be more accurate.

The red blade and bony hilt of the famous Charon's Claw fit his hand perfectly. The sword practically purred in contentment at his touch.

Oh, but that first moment he'd pulled it from the sheath at the little man's side had been interesting. The blade had been like an unbroken stallion at first, had wanted to fight him.

Then it was like the recognition of old friends. The blade knew him as one of its own kind. The shadow that his masters had begun to hang around him called to the sword, and it knew it had come home at last.

Alegni looked forward to an eternity of mutual discovery and pleasure with this blade.

Then he considered the unconscious form of the man who'd possessed the blade before him.

Barrabus the Gray, he was called. Alegni ran a red finger gently down the man's cheek and watched the gray of shadow come to the surface where he touched him. Gray was certainly a fitting name for this one.

But the shadow inside him was not pure. It was a bastard shadow, taken in by impure means.

That made it no less potent, but it meant the man could not be trusted to serve his masters without extra precaution. But in Alegni's opinion, this Barrabus was now a creature of shadow, however the source, and as such must serve shadow without question.

Claw whispered to him then of compulsions it carried inside him. Claw whispered that it knew this one well enough to bind him utterly to the blade-and with that bind him likewise to the blade's wielder, its beloved new master, Herzgo Alegni, true son of shadow.

But the ritual would take time, and be painful and humiliating to the victim.

Alegni laughed out loud-a merry, ringing laugh that nearly woke the poor victim before him.

"All the more reason to proceed!" he cried out in pure enjoyment.

Oh, yes, he was going to enjoy his new toys very much.

Calihye strode through the dark streets of Memnon with a merry heart of her own. She was free. Free of the drow. Free of Artemis Entreri. She was a free woman, able to go wherever she desired and do whatever she wished.

If she had any regrets about the path she'd chosen, those regrets were swallowed quickly by the feelings of complete freedom and utter triumph that coursed through her.

She laughed out loud at the thoughts of Artemis and the tiefling haggling over the price of that sword. She hoped Herzgo Alegni made his life miserable over that stupid, ugly red blade.

In the morning, she thought to herself, she would get a sword of her own from the closest arms shop. Then she would be fully prepared to make her own way. But right then, she was headed to the closest inn. She needed a good night's sleep if she were going to rule the world in the morning.

She never noticed the three sets of red eyes that followed her in the darkness. She didn't even hear the whistle of a tiny crossbow bolt as it flew through the air toward her. She barely felt the sting as the needle-like poisoned tip entered the soft skin of her throat.

But she fell to the ground unconscious nonetheless.

The first one to reach her flashed hand signs to the others. _Perfect shot. Let's get her back quickly. Kimmuriel will never know. _

The other two gave him a look of complete disdain. _Kimmuriel always knows, _one signaled back._ It is pointless to even try to hide the truth from him. _

_But we do have her back, _the third added._ Perhaps if we adjust her memory a little, the subject will never come up. _

The first smiled at the variety of ways the drow possessed of adjusting a memory. _Perhaps_.

And he slung her over his shoulder like a sack of meal and carried her back to the underdark, plans for her already beginning to take shape in the darkest sections of his mind.

Artemis Entreri blinked in the light. It was so bright he believed he'd been taken straight into the sun itself.

The thought unnerved and cheered him. Was this how it felt to serve a god, he asked himself, simultaneously wonderful and terrifying?

Then a face came into view, blocking the overhead sun from his eyes, the face of an angel.

Dwahvel.

He reached up to touch her cheek. It was wet. "Don't cry for me," he whispered, but his voice was hoarse. "I am not worth your tears."

"Oh yes, you are," she answered and pulled him into her strong embrace.

He drank in the feel of her, the warmth of her, the softness of her skin. "I missed you so desperately," he tried to say, but the words would not form through the emotion.

Then he felt another little hand against his arm. His baby. His Guendoline. He pulled her into his embrace as well.

"Papa. Papa, you're squeezing too hard," she said after a moment. He forced himself to loosen his hold enough to look around him.

He lay on the ground in a spot clear of debris, but all around him was destruction.

Brother Ansel knelt at his side, a look of concern on his face. "You gave us quite a scare, Artemis," the priest said. "How do you feel?"

Artemis sat up slowly, his head swimming dizzily. "I am wonderful," he replied. "I am home. How long was I gone? Seven days? Eight?"

He managed to stand to his feet, one arm around Dwahvel's shoulder and the other supported by the priest.

"You haven't gone anywhere, Artemis," Dwahvel answered, her voice worried.

"A dark cloud of magic hung over you for the better part of a day, but you never left here," Brother Ansel added.

"I never left here?" Artemis asked them, a bit confused.

"No," Dwahvel replied, mystified herself. "You have been right here."

"According to those who saw, you pulled Dwahvel and Guendoline to safety, then you collapsed," Brother Ansel added. "Perhaps it was a magical effect, much like those so many of the wizards experienced."

Wizards. Grimandi.

No, that was the past. He'd never left.

What other wizards did he know? Mellisandra. He managed to put the ideas together.

"Is Mellisandra hurt?" he asked as they led him to sit on a low fallen tree trunk. Guendoline did her best to climb up beside him, and he effortlessly lifted her into his lap, but she slid free onto the exotic seat of the bark of the tree, the seat she really wanted beside him. Then she snuggled against him, holding onto his arm tightly.

"She was distraught earlier. None of her spells work. She can't access the weave any longer. She kept saying that the weave has been destroyed," Dwahvel said in a quiet voice.

Brother Ansel added, "Some wizards have gone insane, and bizarre magical effects have happened to others."

"Artemis, they told me something like that had happened to you, even though you are not a wizard," Dwahvel finished softly.

He could hear the strain in her voice and could only imagine the worry she'd been through, not knowing what was wrong with him.

"Are you certain you are all right, Artemis?" she asked him again as she knelt before him, his seat on the fallen tree placing him at eye level with her. She pushed back his hair and looked him straight in his eyes, as if she were looking for reassurance of his sanity and well-being.

The world still seemed to spin around him, but he forced himself to focus on her. Guendoline still clung to his left hand, so he reached out to cup Dwahvel's cheek with his right. "I am fine," he said. "I am home. You and Guendoline are safe. That's all that matters." And he pulled Dwahvel to him for a kiss, then rested his forehead against hers.

Perhaps he hadn't left at all. Perhaps everything he'd been through had only been a magic-induced nightmare. The more his head cleared, the more he began to reconsider the events of what felt like the past several days.

Calihye. Grimandi. Herzgo Alegni.

His son.

Shar.

Lathander.

That had not been a dream. He looked up at the bright sun above him and he knew in his heart it had happened. It had all happened.

But somehow Lathander-Amaunator-had sent him home again. His god had given him back his second chance. How could he ever repay that mercy?

"There's not much left of the house," came a voice from behind him. Cullon, he realized. Then his young swordmaster walked around to the front carrying a large trunk in his hands. "This is one of the few items that appears to have been left intact, Mistress Entreri. I am sorry."

Entreri's heart nearly stopped as he looked at it. It was the trunk that contained Charon's Claw. How ironic that the one thing to survive the destruction of his house was the trunk within a trunk, locked and trapped, that he'd kept Charon's Claw in for the past three years.

But Charon's Claw could not be inside. He knew that sword hung on the belt of another man a thousand miles away.

The trunk was still locked and trapped. He knelt beside it and in only a moment he had it open, pulling out a second locked and trapped trunk from inside the first. He unlocked it and disabled the traps, but stopped short of actually opening the lid.

Charon's Claw could not be inside.

Could it?

Then he looked up at the glowing ball of the sun, so bright he could not gaze at it without tears springing to his eyes, blinding in its intensity above him.

Finally, he got up the courage to raise the lid.

He looked inside and the shock caused him to sit back on the ground hard.

How could this be?

Dwahvel looked inside and gasped, "Dear god!"

Then Guendoline peeked inside and said merrily, "That's my brother."

The sword was gone. But incredibly a tiny, darkhaired newborn baby boy lay asleep inside. Entreri somehow managed to regroup his wits enough to reach out to the infant's tiny hand.

Five little fingers grasped his in a firm grip.

He carefully reached into the box and lifted out his son. His son had been given back to him.

He remembered Brother Ansel's words-the mercies of the morning never cease.

He'd been given yet another second chance.

The baby stirred a little in his arms and he held him against his chest the way he used to hold Guendoline.

"How?" Dwahvel whispered in amazement.

But Artemis didn't care how. He'd been given another second chance.

Dwahvel knelt beside him and watched her husband cradle this mysterious baby. She watched him as he bent and pressed his lips to that tiny dark head. Then she put her arms around him and held them both as emotion overcame him.

At last, he looked up at her, his baby boy nestled safely in his arms, and said, "I have to tell you what happened to me." Then he reached up to her face, the curls of her hair looping around his fingers, and he begged her, "Please, Dwahvel, please understand."

She did.

The End

_**Author's Note: **Well, that's it! Please, oh, please let me know if the ending worked. I've been setting the Lathander stuff up since Dawn and really wanted to make sure it all came together. Oh, and do let me know what you think about bringing the baby back. I had fully intended a sad, tragic ending on that one, but it literally came to me in the middle of the night that it should end this way. Hope needed to prevail. But if it comes off as just overly sentimental and sappy, I will know better next time. However, I am keeping the happy ending because I like it. I hope you do too! _

_Thank you all for reading and reviewing! Your reviews mean everything. Everything. I am not kidding. I love to get reviews for stuff I put up four years ago. It lets me know people are still finding it and getting some level of enjoyment out of it. Please review. _


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